Family
by XDark-PriestessX
Summary: A between-arcs side story of the Disrepair House series. Takes place between the first and second arc. After the reset, and at the behest of Solaris, RK is tasked with finding a school for Itara. However, when an unassuming shopping trip for supplies brings the two face-to-face with the parents of the kidnapped little girl Itara inhabits, Itara's forced into uncomfortable realizat
1. Chapter 1

"You want me t-to _what_?" Irritation spread across the young hedgehog's face. She glared up at her robotic partner, assessing how serious he actually was about this. Of course, she was studying the face of a robot; she wasn't getting anywhere any time soon. Sure, he was a particularly expressive AI, all things considered, but that meant little in her current situation. His face was stoic and his voice was monotone, she could read nothing.

" _I_ don't want you to do anything," the towering red robot stated simply, crossing his arms as he near-mumbled, "except maybe stay as far away from the public eye as possible," before returning to his typical, flat tone and explained further, "it was Solaris' request upon bringing you back."

"But RK! School?!" Itara whined, her ears dropping as her arms flew into the air, "w-what do I… what do I look like, some kind of mortal?! A-And without the use of my powers…" Her arms returned to her sides, fumbling more and more over her words as she grew more anxious about the idea, "I… I can't… I-"

RK kneeled down to meet the small, stuttering demi-god eye-to-eye, placing a hand on her head and rubbing between her ears, getting a wide-eyed stare from the girl. "Look," he began, having made note of her stutter since her return, "I'm sure Solaris is aware of your loss of control over your powers, which means he knows you can handle it without them because I'm more than sure he wants this for a particular reason. He didn't exactly stop to explain in detail why, but whatever it is, I'm sure it's important." Of course, with the memories he retained of Mephiles' schemes, he wasn't entirely sure the situation _wasn't_ dangerous to Itara in her current state, but he wasn't going to tell her that. He would just keep a close eye on her.

Perhaps Solaris wasn't as conniving and sacrificial as Mephiles had been on his own and wouldn't just use Itara as Mephiles had, but RK couldn't be sure of that. There was very little actual information regarding the _personality quirks_ of Gods so RK could only work off his data about Mephiles and Iblis. Solaris still seemed pissed, even after the fight, even after erasing the humans' corruption of his power, so RK wasn't about to just blindly trust him, but he could at least calm Itara's nerves for the meantime. He wouldn't ever be far from her for the time being, at least until she regained control of her powers.

It took at least another hour of quelling her concerns before Itara was finally convinced, to a degree, of the idea, and they had decided a trip into town for school shopping was in order. While they walked, RK searched through a database of the nearest schools, taking Itara's physical age into account, rather than her mental age, as it would raise fewer questions. The walk was relatively silent, Itara lost in thought about what Solaris could possibly want from this endeavor, giving RK plenty of time to focus entirely on his research.

They remained in the same abandoned house as they had been the entire time so they were still a decent distance from the nearest town, as well as its school, and no form of public transportation came anywhere near them. Of course, this set up was necessary for their previous needs, staying as far away from prying eyes as possible, but now that they needed to associate more with the general public the distance offered a minor challenge. If Itara had use of her powers, physical distance would have meant nothing to her, and if she could rely entirely on him to get her to and from school he could run great distances easily and quickly. However, if she ever needed to get there or home on her own, it would be a long walk to even the outer edge of town. Given her increased… clumsiness… he wanted to avoid that as much as possible.

Would it be possible for them to move further into the town?

Costs aside, would that be safe? They weren't exactly regular citizens of… anywhere. Itara was a shred of a God created in a lab, he was a rogue Robotnik robot… and then there was their latest addition. The newest broken robot in their base had yet to reactivate, but when he finally did they had no guarantee he wouldn't attack. In fact, an immediate assault was the most likely response. It wouldn't be safe to have him inside the city. There was always the option of keeping Metal Sonic at their base while he and Itara stayed somewhere in the city during the week. He wouldn't like not being right there in case he awoke, but if he connected directly to the other robot so he would know immediately if he reactivated, it would be a quick trip back to the base.

It was a possibility. He would have to look into it more, as the threat of the public eye remained. Just trips into town were potential risks. They didn't know who remembered what still. Could they really risk living _within_ the town? Even just during the school weeks?

"RK!"

RK snapped back to attention, closing his various research materials as he looked down at the young, perturbed hedgehog, "what?"

"You weren't listening!"

"I apologize, I was looking into nearby schools."

Itara remained silent as her flattened ears flicked up, though concern crossed her face again as she questioned, "did… you find anything?"

"There are a couple options within this town, it seemed the most viable since this is where we shop most often, you already know the layout, though I'm concerned about the distance," RK explained, looking up at the various store signs. He had led them to the nearest clothing shops, though he wasn't entirely sure what to even look for and pulled the websites up for the two schools he had found to see what sort of dress they suggested. One seemed to require a school-issued uniform, the other simply required certain types of clothing that could be widely bought. "Itara, would you prefer a private or public school?"

"A what?"

"The two types of schools in this town, one is a private school and the other is a public school. They have different dress requirements so I want to know which we should prepare for."

"What's… the difference?" There were many things Itara was knowledgeable in, having travelled across many timelines and spent much time studying. However, she had taken very little interest in the more useless details of mortal life. School, she had long since determined, was useless.

"Private schools are independently-owned schools and are funded in whole or in part by a tuition rather than a government funding. They're often specialized in some way and most offer a stricter curriculum. Public school, on the other hand, is government-funded and has a more generalized curriculum. The private school here requires a school-mandated uniform, but the public school just has a set of codes you need to follow. They both seem to have their pros and cons, I can give you a more detailed report if you'd like."

"Oh… uh, n-no… that's… that's fine." Itara's ears twitched lightly as she thought it through, looking up at RK again, "did you say tuition?"

"Yes, the private school has one. If the private school is what you'd like, I can just pick the side-job I had before back up-"

"No, I… I wouldn't," Itara chewed on her words, looking for the correct ones and growing frustrated, "this isn't… important enough to worry t-that much about. The… the public school will be fine. I guess."

"If that's what you want," RK nodded, leading her to the most promising clothing shop to continue with their trip. The code was extensive, but the large store offered plenty of options that he could easily run through the code and make sure it met the requirements. As they walked, RK made careful note of any item Itara seemed to eye for certain lengths of time to run them through the code and see if they were feasible options. Though she made few comments throughout the trip, despite shopping for her own clothes, RK was able to easily identify what she most wanted by carefully studying her reactions when they walked past aisles.

Not everything she eyed were possible options, either due to going against the code's requirements or funds, as he wanted to make sure she had plenty of options, but by the third shop they'd acquired a decent number of new items. Along the way, Itara had gone from unsure and weary about the entire idea to surprisingly ecstatic about her new clothes. RK made a note of this for later, as well.

Exiting the third shop with the final pieces of her new wardrobe, Itara bounced out the door in her excitement, catching her own feet along the way and nearly tumbling into a nearby streetlight. Luckily, she managed to grab onto the pole before she planted her face into it and recollected herself. After a brief scolding from RK to be more careful, she pointed to a nearby ice cream stand, staring up at the robot with the most pitiful look her giant green and purple eyes could manage, which only garnered a sarcastic laugh from the robot.

"Itara… you know that doesn't work. But fine, I will get you some ice cream, but only a small cone! Dinner is soon and I don't want you ruining your appetite."

"Yes," the child exclaimed, darting, and tripping, towards the stand with the robot hot on her heels.

"Itara, go sit down before you hurt yourself. There are tables right over there, go sit down and I'll bring your ice cream."

"Fine, fine… I want chocolate!"

"I know."

RK followed her to the table, setting her bags down, and made sure she stayed in place before turning back towards the ice cream stand to get her a small cone. Itara sat, though wiggled excitedly in place, as she watched him walk off. Once he was in the line for the ice cream, she decided to look around and study the people around her to keep from getting too anxious. She noticed the drawbacks to being unable to travel through time more and more every day and so she had taken up small exercises to try and make it more bearable until she could control her powers again.

The area around the ice cream shop was a relatively small nook, set up with several tables and benches as there were a handful of food shops nearby. The ice cream shop was a mobile stand set up in the middle, but along the edges were a noodle shop, a sandwich shop, and some fancy foreign-looking diner. Towards the opening of the nook was the last clothing store she and RK had just come from and past that was a much wider shopping area with a host of varying shops and stores. It was a popular outdoor shopping center that she and RK only visited once or twice before when it was absolutely necessary, otherwise they avoided heavily populated areas.

Itara shifted her focus from the stores, themselves, and began studying the general populace hurriedly shuffling from one building to the next. They were mostly humans, as was common in this area, but a handful of mobians were dotted throughout the crowds. Along with their distinctive appearances, even amongst mobians, the fact that this was a mainly human populated area was one of the reasons she and RK preferred staying out of sight. When there were only so many of them to begin with, it was easy to pick out the oddly colored or shaped and they had too many enemies to take many risks.

Then again, Itara wondered how many of the others even remembered the previous timeline. She remembered, of course, but she was part of Solaris, she would. RK was a robot so it was easier to keep the files, even with the changes. But what about Sonic's group? Or Robotnik? Or, most importantly, Shadow? She had been lucky enough not to run into him since her return so she didn't know if he would even remember her or not. She didn't really want to find out, either, especially not without her powers. She could never escape Shadow on foot. Once her powers returned, though, it might be a good thing to find out.

Itara's eyes scanned, curiously, over the different people and groups, studying each carefully. There were a lot of families, parents with their young children, and groups of teenagers, friends hanging out and discussing the latest interests. A group of teens was daring each other to climb the planted trees on the sidewalks. A mother was scolding her screaming child, threatening to go home early. A couple on a date was sharing a drink. Itara was growing bored already. As her eyes slid halfway down, she drifted into thought about the mortals and their meaningless nonsense, mentally yelled at them for not realizing it, and cursed them for the original future they brought on. They should know how lucky they were to exist now, never knowing what originally became of their meaningless society.

But Solaris would show them again. His plans would be less… destructive this time around, but he would be back and she would relish in their pain once more.

Well… not that she did much relishing in the original timeline, either. But that was beside the point.

Sighing, she threw her head back impatiently and outwardly whined, catching the attention of a few passing groups, but turned her attention back towards the ice cream shop. RK was at least next. She wouldn't have to wait too much longer. He shot her a look at her outburst, having heard her, as well, so she turned back around and rested her arms on the table, laying her head between them. She hated waiting! She was a time traveler!

As she looked out again, hoping to find something entertaining to keep her mind busy again, she realized one of the couples she'd attracted with her outcry had stopped and were still staring at her from across the courtyard. At first her face flushed with embarrassment, but turned to frustration at her boredom and being stared at. She shot them both a warning glare, eyeing them coldly to hopefully get them to move along again.

That didn't seem to work.

Instead, much to Itara's concern and dismay, the couple crossed the courtyard towards her after one of them nudged the other forward. Itara's eyes widened for a moment, before narrowing again, watching them cautiously. She didn't recognize them, they weren't part of Sonic's group as far as she could tell and they certainly weren't Robotnik robots. Who were they? Why were they approaching? They were both mobians, hedgehogs; the woman was noticeably taller than her male partner, with deep reddish-brown fur and long, wild spines, and shining purple eyes; the male was teal with long, smooth spines pulled back into a low ponytail and calm orange eyes. They were both dressed in exquisitely high quality clothing with impeccable style, in drastic contrast to the very casual people around them. It made Itara wonder how she ever missed them while she was looking around before, they were hard to miss.

Her eyes narrowed only further as they approached the table, her mouth pulling into a tight line as she eyed them cautiously, waiting for them to make the first move to see what they wanted. If they were enemies, she didn't want to initiate a fight she couldn't finish—or run away from—but if they weren't, she didn't want to spark suspicion and draw excess attention she didn't need. She really hated not being able to see into the future. She felt so defenseless lately. As she started opening her mouth to call for RK, the male hedgehog's stern, equally-cautious face finally softened as he questioned, "Itara?"

What?

Confusion spread over her face, almost immediately being replaced with apprehension. She sat up and away from the couple, eyeing them suspiciously. They knew her name. No one should know her name. Did Shadow remember the other timeline? Were they sent after her? But why weren't they attacking immediately, then? Her eyes slid towards RK before returning to the couple. Maybe it was because of RK being right there, maybe it was because they were in a heavily populated area. They couldn't attack her right now with all the innocents around so these two obviously had to be GUN spies; they would go in, inconspicuously, maybe even get her guards down, lead her somewhere with less people…

Shaking the thought from her head, she eyed the couple again, cautiously and slowly questioning, "Do I… know you?" If Shadow remembered her, surely _he'd_ be more direct, because if he remembered her, he'd remember Mephiles. He wouldn't take chances like this. So who were these two, then? Why did they appear _hurt_ by her question?

"You… are Itara, aren't you?" the male questioned.

"That would depend… on who's asking," Itara stated firmly.

"Do you not remember us?"

Itara stared them down. She couldn't say she did. Was that possible? She didn't associate with enough mortals in this timeline to know enough of them to forget. Sonic and his friends, Shadow and his group, the princess, Robotnik and his robots. Silver and Blaze in the far off future. She didn't ever talk to normal mortals. Who could these people possibly be? That knew her? There was no way they were confusing her with _another_ mobian, hedgehog Itara… could they?

As she shook her head, the couple exchanged glances. Concern and pain touched their faces as they turned back to her, "Itara… we're your parents."

Itara's eyes widened as she stared at them; shock, horror, confusion, uncertainty, she wasn't sure which cycled emotion was left on her face, she couldn't fully comprehend their statement. Her parents? Her only 'parent' was the split mind of a God, her only 'father' was Solaris. She had no parents. No family. Who did they think they were, insinuating this?

But then it dawned on her.

The girl whose body she'd taken.

She had never liked dwelling on her actual creation, it had been a terrifying, confusing time full of panic and constant on-edge survival instincts. She only remembered a lot of loud noise and a sudden force shoving her into a physical form she didn't choose with powers she had no control over. Before her first run-in with Mephiles, she never understood what she even was, how she came into existence, or what 'parents' even were. She didn't even know where her own name came from, it was just the name echoing around the mind she'd taken over.

Now she understood.

Her face calmed, finally, as she went into careful thought about the situation. These were the parents of her namesake. Though her appearance had altered slightly due to being part of Mephiles, she remained relatively the same. At least in her neutral form. They thought she was their daughter. Technically speaking, she was, in a way, but the girl they knew was long gone. _She_ was Itara now. This sliver of Mephiles' power, this creation of Robotnik, this broken off piece of Solaris, this was Itara. But how did she handle this situation?

She couldn't look into the future for the answer, her book was useless, so she had no idea which option was the most beneficial to her. The couple didn't give her much more time to consider it, either, as they leaned forward to start barraging her with questions about her location over the years. Itara didn't even realize the girl had been missing for so long, even before the events with the scepter would have originally taken place, on top of the two-year gap between the reset and her return to the physical world. She couldn't answer most of their questions and was having a hard time avoiding the answers. She wasn't sure what she could tell them and her stutter was only making things worse.

Finally, her rescue came, as RK crossed the courtyard from the ice cream stand to come back to the table, though his pace suddenly quickened once he noticed the couple talking with a flustered Itara. He immediately started running them through his database, not immediately recognizing them as their enemies, but wanting to make sure they weren't a threat. His scan continued running in the background as he approached the table, eyeing the two suspiciously as he did.

"I apologize for taking so long, everything alright?" he questioned, catching the young time traveler's attention as she swung around to face him. She'd nearly forgotten all about her ice cream by this point but the small, sprinkle-covered cone lit her eyes right back up.

"RK, these are, uh," Itara began, reaching for her ice cream, needing the comfort of the snack now.

"Her parents," the teal hedgehog interrupted, turning cold rather suddenly as he glared the large robot down, who only stared in response. Silence drifted between them as RK refocused on his scan and Itara kept her eyes glued to her ice cream, trying to think through the situation. Once his scan completed, and RK realized the situation, he closed the window and stared out at them. The dated missing child post popped up along with their names, backing the story up with what remained of his Robotnik database. Even though he had been inactive during her kidnapping, the information was still there. This could very well be problematic.

While he hadn't been the one to kidnap the young mobian, he was not only the one with her now, but also a creation of the one who had. If he wasn't guilty by circumstance alone, he was guilty by association and he was sure the parents would see their missing child as his fault. Did they explain the situation to them? Surely they couldn't explain about Mephiles, Solaris, and Itara's current existence… but could they explain that she was kidnapped by Robotnik? It wouldn't be the first time Robotnik was behind a kidnapping so it was a believable enough story. But _should_ they? Or should they just leave? Immediately?

No, that was too hasty and suspicious, it would draw attention they didn't need. He and Itara were too distinct to hide from public eye if direct attention was brought to them and, assumedly, the world _wouldn't_ be destroyed soon so this situation couldn't be passed off as irrelevant.

Itara looked up towards him once she was about halfway through her ice cream, exchanging glances with the robot before their eyesight turned back to the couple. The male seemed surprisingly calm, despite the situation, though his eyes had scarcely moved from the robot since his approach. The female, on the other hand, looked ready to start a fight. They realized, upon further inspection, that they should likely quell the fire before it exploded and made a scene.

Standing up, Itara started picking up her bags of clothes and offered, "w-we should talk… elsewhere. So I can… m-maybe try to… fill you in? But… not in such a… loud public place?"

RK moved to take the bags and nod to the parents, hoping they would willingly follow without making a scene. Their daughter had been missing for several years now, so he didn't see them wanting to argue the point, but he couldn't be sure. One of them seemed willing enough to listen, but the other just looked like she wanted to punch him. He really hoped she didn't try, he didn't need some random mobian breaking their hand on his hull. Even though he _looked_ like just a normal, though unusually tall, mobian for the most part, punching him would easily shatter that disguise when they hit nothing but steel and a thin layer of fluff.

Luckily, it seemed, they would be able to move out of the populated area without incident, as the couple followed easily after Itara. RK decided it was likely in his best interest, for the moment, to take up the end and not separate the parents from their 'daughter'. The explanation would be hard enough as it was without the added suspicion of trying to separate them once again. Though, now that he thought about it, the one who did technically kidnap the missing girl… was back home, in their base, deactivated right now. That detail was also best left unsaid.

They walked in relative silence, Itara leading the way, wanting to get as far away from as many people as possible so they lowered the risk of anyone overhearing anything of value. The mother grew impatient as they walked, but worse was Itara's tripping from trying to hurriedly leave the area. She was lucky she finished her ice cream quickly, otherwise she would have lost what was left several times. Light conversation was started, and ultimately dropped, along the way but nothing much of value began until they reached a decently vacant park outside the shopping area. As it grew closer to evening, despite the warmth of the day, a cool breeze was starting to blow and many had left to return home, most for dinner, leaving the four plenty of open space to talk.

Itara moved to a lone bench and table near a scrawny tree and sat down, waiting for the others to join her. RK readjusted all her bags, setting them on the concrete under the table, as he sat beside her, joined by the parents quickly enough, though the father seemed displeased by the idea of sitting on something potentially dirty. It amused RK for a moment, but the picky mobian sat down eventually.

Shifting uncomfortably, Itara ran a couple more scenarios in her head, potential outcomes of the various details she could tell the two, looking over to them once she had as much of a handle on it as possible. She cursed her inability to time travel again, not only could she not foresee what would come of this, but it meant she would stutter through whatever explanation she gave, as well. She questioned how much they would even trust her, knowing nothing about them whatsoever, if she constantly had to reword her responses. She wasn't even sure where to start, but that answer came soon enough for her.

"So who is this, then?" the father questioned, regaining the cold, accusatory tone from before as he motioned towards RK.

Itara glanced to her robot companion before returning her attention to the couple, "his name's RK. He's my," Itara knew she needed to quell their suspicions about him as an idea hit her, "my rescuer." All three present eyed her, either curiously or in shock, and she was glad RK was able to hide his own response easily as she continued, "I remember very little about being kidnapped, and, admittedly, almost nothing before that." That, of course, was a lie. She 'remembered' nothing about either. "But I was held in some underground base and RK rescued me. The injuries he… his injuries are from the base c-collapsing during our escape." She spoke as slowly as she could manage to avoid stuttering as much as possible, but also to make sure her explanation was simple and easy to work off. She preferred careful planning over improvisation, so she stuck as closely to actual events as possible, even though they were a bit… shifted, chronologically.

Wanting to carefully consider her next detail, she studied the faces of the parents across from her, curious of their reactions. The woman continued to stare in shock, but the male shifted his gaze between her and RK, seeming to also carefully consider the tale. Itara couldn't tell if he was suspicious, or just cautious. Either way, she decided she needed to be careful of her words around him, he seemed the most likely to catch on to her ruse. She hoped she could play the memory loss for any change in personality traits between her and their daughter.

"Do you know who it was that took you?"

"I… I believe it was… the one known as Robotnik?" Itara looked down, purposely flattening her ears for show, "I was asleep most of the t-time, b-but… when I awoke again I… I had no memory… of anything. RK got me to safety… at the cost of his… arm… and so I simply stayed with him." Looking up again, she frowned, "I didn't know why Robotnik… I didn't know what he w-wanted… so we've been trying… we just wanted to stay hidden."

The couple exchanged glances once more as Itara looked up to RK, noting the robot's complete stillness and lightly glowing eye, which she knew meant he was either looking up or logging information. The only movement came from the long furry tail that flicked back and forth behind the bench. Itara returned her attention to the couple to find them staring at her and simply stared back, wondering what they were thinking. Both their faces had softened as they studied her, the cold glare in the male's eyes dissipating into concern for her. She couldn't help but draw parallels between their faces now and those of Silver and Blaze's when she first met them. When she was with her father.

The memory caused a small tinge of sadness to touch her face, drawing up memories of first learning to use her powers, the training sessions with Mephiles, when he first rescued her from Iblis' fire monster. The longer she studied the two across the table from her, the longer she dwelled on the memories of the original timeline, the more she realized that sort of expression never touched her father's face. She refused to let the thoughts go any further, however, and quickly wiped the string of realizations from her mind to turn her full attention back to the mortal parents. Her father just wasn't an expressive person; she was used to that with RK, as well. They were both just focused on releasing Solaris, that was all.

"So you remember nothing? Of us? Of your home?" the male questioned again.

"Of your friends?" the woman added.

"Unfortunately not," Itara answered, shaking her head, "otherwise I would have… gone home, I'm sure." No she wouldn't have. "All I could… recall… was the name 'Itara', so I assumed it had been mine. For all I knew… it wasn't… but it was all I h-had."

"You poor thing," the woman nearly cried, darting up out of her side and moving to Itara's side, wrapping her arms around the surprised child, "that must have been terrible! Don't worry, I bet your dad can find a way to fix your memory somehow. Maybe being home will jog it a bit! We should go home _right now_ and see!" Itara, as caught off-guard as she was by this, could only blink in confusion. RK only watched curiously, though grew concerned. He couldn't very well argue, but he didn't like the idea of her being away from him, as was most likely to happen in that situation.

"Of course, I can't have my little girl not even remembering her father, I'll fix this, don't you worry," the male stated matter-of-factly. Itara shifted her gaze, as much as she could, towards him and furrowed her brows in confusion. She knew she needed to play along to find out if they were useful to her, but it was such a strange concept that she couldn't find the proper reaction. She needed to remind herself that these weren't actually her parents, that wasn't actually her father, she just needed to play along for a little while. He turned towards RK after studying Itara, struggling to keep the cold glare off his face, and added, "I suppose… I should offer you a room, as well, as you apparently saved my daughter."

"Oh, Mira, don't be such a grump about it," the woman exclaimed, continuing to strangle the small child in her arms, turning to RK, "we're very grateful you rescued and took care of our little girl, of course you're welcome back home, too!"

Mira just scowled at being called a 'grump' but returned his attention back to his wife and 'daughter', "Kelly, stop suffocating my daughter."

"Our."

"No."

After what felt like hours to the small child, Itara was finally released from Kelly's surprisingly locked grip, and thus free from the voluptuous chest that nearly suffocated her. Taking a deep breath and relishing her freedom once more, Itara just sighed as the woman moved back to the other side of the table. This was going to be a challenge, she could already tell. What had she gotten herself into? And without her powers, even!

The four, mostly three, of them sat and chatted a bit longer, the newly ecstatic couple trying to dig more details out of Itara while RK questioned their living arrangements. He was reminded, after one of the clothing bags were knocked over by the wind, that he was planning to enroll Itara in school soon and wondered if, perhaps, this might be the answer to the distance problem. He wouldn't much like the idea of her being away from him at any point, there were too many threats, but if he could keep an eye on her while she was at this other house, perhaps they could make it work somehow. Of course, there was still the problem of Metal Sonic, but RK would just make sure he was constantly connected to the dysfunctional robot while he was away from the base.

Besides, he thought, perhaps this offered Itara a chance to shift her focus away from Solaris and Mephiles and onto someone less… destructive.


	2. Chapter 2

Itara's eyes widened as they reached the expansive fence, stretching as far as she could see to either side, completely encasing a large, beautiful estate and the miles of yard around it. They were quickly buzzed in by the standing security at the gate and the couple led her and her robotic companion inside. A long, wide gravel road stretched from street to steps, bordered by freshly cut, vivid green grass on either side with long, colorful gardens further back. Sparkling, flat, almost crystal-like rocks shifted under their feet as they walked and rows of tiny, metal fences separated the trail from the grass, keeping it from growing out over the path. Small, fence-posted electric lanterns lined and lit their path as the day grew into night.

As they neared the manor, Itara felt dwarfed by the towering columns around the front door, and even the door, itself, felt scaled for a giant rather than a normal mobian. The deep red, mahogany of the door contrasted the bright, almost shining white marble of the frame that encased it and the entire outer shell. Soft, orange lights glowed out from the massive windows, casting great shadows on the wall gardens below them. Intricate designs were carved in the door and columns and even along the bottom edges of the outside walls. As the heavy door slowly swung open, revealing a grand, brightly lit entrance, Itara turned towards her companion for the first time during their walk for assurance. Compared to their shack of a living arrangement, the grandeur of the manor felt uncomfortable and almost worrying.

Did her namesake truly live in such comfort before Robotnik?

To a degree, Itara grew suddenly jealous of the girl. She was a part of an actual God, yet her entire existence had been cruel and harsh from the beginning, meanwhile this… mobian child lived in the lap of ultimate luxury. While she had never felt anything for the girl whose body she was forced into before, neither resenting nor pitying her, a new form of anger welled up inside her. She deserved to be kidnapped. But her ears flattened at the thought. She hadn't even taken on the girl's memories when she took over her body, she only managed to grasp a name. She didn't know anything about her. Shaking her head, she reminded herself that all the mortals deserved to be punished simply for what they did to her father, let alone anything else they may have done. She wasn't going to show sympathy to one mobian child. In fact, that girl should be relieved to live on as the daughter of a God.

Nodding to herself about this, she returned her gaze to the two in front of her again, who appeared to be watching her, waiting for something. She had been so distracted by her own thoughts, she hadn't heard anything they'd said for several minutes. Had they asked her a question? Looking to RK for an answer, he simply shook his head.

"You weren't listening, were you?" Her face flushed ever so slightly. This was all the answer he needed, apparently, as he repeated their question, "they asked if you were hungry or if you're still full on ice cream."

"O-oh… r-right… y-yes," Itara stammered, looking off to the side to regain her composure, also to assess the state of her stomach. She didn't really _need_ to eat often so technically she was fine on the ice cream for a while… but she grew curious what sort of fancy food they ate. Finally looking towards them again, she stammered out a small answer in affirmation, letting them know she was a _tad_ hungry, since it was close to dinner. The father nodded and turned to the mother, letting her know he would be in the kitchen and she should show Itara up to her old room. The woman easily nodded and offered a surprisingly warm smile to the young girl, holding a hand out for her to take.

Itara shifted uncomfortably, but reluctantly held her hand out for the woman to take, getting pulled along almost immediately. She glanced back towards RK, but he was already following closely after them, not wanting Itara out of his eyesight so soon. The woman seemed far more chatty than her husband, though Itara couldn't gauge if that was normal behavior for her or if it was simply from her 'daughter's' return. She yammered the entire way up the grand staircase and all the way down the carpeted hall to a carefully decorated door with Itara's name etched finely into a plaque above the door. The door, itself, was painted in pure white though the frame around it was intricately carved and painted a soft blue.

Kelly hesitated as she reached for the door, seeming apprehensive about entering, growing quiet for the first time since their meeting. But with a quick glance towards Itara, the warm smile returned to her face and she turned the knob to swing it open.

"Welcome home, kiddo."

The room inside was decorated in carefully coordinated blues, silvers, and whites, from the color of the carpet, to the bed sheets, to the curtains; even the child-intended decorations hanging on the walls were perfectly matched to the room's color scheme. The room was much larger than the one Itara had back at the base; in fact, Itara suspected, it was likely larger than the entire base by itself. There was an open door on the far left wall that Itara could vaguely recognize as a bathroom and another closed door on the back wall. Seeing as they were the only doors connected to the room, Itara assumed it was the closet.

The bed was huge, rounded, and up against the middle of the right wall, with silver lace draped around the frame and a small set of steps leading up to the bed. Across from the bed, in the far left corner, was a long, white, metal desk with a computer so large, with so many screens, Itara assumed some sort of mad scientist had taken it over. She wondered how it compared to their upgraded computer at home and if it'd be of any use for repairing her robot companions. But furthering Itara's theory of a mad scientist having taken over the room, were the several, long, very full—yet very neatly color-coded and organized—bookshelves along all three of the walls. Itara was now fully convinced that her namesake was some kind of gigantic nerd.

Towards the center of the room was the only semblance of anything child-like in the entire room. Laid out on a huge, thick blue rug were a small couch, two beanbag chairs, and a TV with a large stand that, upon closer inspection, had several different gaming consoles neatly packed behind glass doors. It was only then that Itara realized a large section of one of the bookcases was dedicated entirely to video games for the different consoles and below the games were several rows of movies and series. As Itara scanned over the names, she realized she actually recognized a lot of the titles of the movies and series as many of them were ones she watched on TV at home whenever she had the free time. It almost made her want to laugh, but at the same time… did this mean she could get caught up on all the missed episodes?!

"So, uh… does any of this, ya know, bring any memories back?"

Itara was caught-off guard by the sudden question, having nearly forgotten about the other two present, but turned her gaze back towards the asker. Itara could read her a little too easily and had to take a moment to consider her response. The mobian looked hopeful, but weary, Itara could easily see the years of restless nights in her tired face and greying colors in her fur. Dampened eyes sparked anew with Itara's appearance, though the young time traveler couldn't fully assess the correct answer. If she lied and said 'yes', it could draw the parents closer to her and thus make them easier to use, but it could also cause problems if they found out she was lying. On the other hand, if she told the truth, it could create a new hopelessness and make their behavior erratic and unreadable, but would keep her safe against any perceived 'strange behavior.' She wasn't sure. She needed more information.

"I'm… afraid not," she finally responded, looking away, "but… perhaps with t-time." She would stay the safe route for the time being, make no promises right away but allude to a possible, hopeful future. She wasn't even sure if she wanted to stick around these people or not, she didn't want to start playing 'daughter' only to escape later, it would cause them to search for her and cause unnecessary risk.

"Right… yeah, of course," Kelly gave a light, forceful laugh, "I guess it'd be too much to expect results that quickly. But hey," her voice suddenly perked up again, "maybe doing some stuff you used to will give you a better jog than just seeing your room. More than anything, it's impossible to forget your dad's cooking! One bite of _that_ and your brain'll be back to normal in no time!" Her laugh this time was haughty and amused and both Itara and RK studied her curiously at the drastic, sudden change. They exchanged glances before returning their attention to her, Itara cautiously agreeing before they returned downstairs to see how dinner was coming along and explore more of the house.

Kelly turned her questioning towards RK on the way down, hoping to get more information about him and his rescue mission, but was only met with short, vague responses that gave little of use. Though it seemed to spark a particular curiosity about the pirate-dressed 'echidna' that RK had a much harder time shaking. While Mira had proven the cautious, detail-oriented one of the two, it seemed Kelly had an unshakable determination once her curiosity was piqued. RK was unsure which was more troublesome. They both seemed quite stubborn. He had to wonder if Itara _had_ somehow gotten some traits from the family, and the body, she inhabited.

They had barely made it through the sitting room before Mira found them again to inform them that dinner was ready. RK began preparing an excuse not to eat, without sounding rude or suspicious, as that wasn't an upgrade he nor Itara had time nor resources for just yet, but was soon caught by a new question from Mira.

"So… are you upgraded enough to eat?"

He stared RK down as Itara and Kelly turned towards them in shock, Itara not expecting him to catch on so quickly and the question flying right over Kelly's head. "What do you mean, 'upgraded'?"

"I mean, he's a robot. Or an android, at least," Mira explained flatly, looking to his confused wife before turning back to RK, "am I wrong?"

The room became dead silent as RK considered the answer, meeting the interrogator's gaze with an equally flat stare. He had hoped that wouldn't come up, but Mira seemed much smarter than RK had given him credit for before. He wondered if he would become a problem at any point.

"You are correct," he responded at length, catching a gasp from Kelly, though Itara went to move beside him, "I am an android, but that's best left between us." While he didn't want to have to fight anyone present if he didn't have to, he made it clear that the last statement was a threat, rather than a suggestion. It wasn't information that needed leaking.

Mira gave a short huff at the threat, folding his arms and staring the robot down, but eventually conceded, "very well." He then turned back around and wrapped an arm around Itara on his way, pulling her back towards the table, "you must be starving, let's get some food in you, alright?" He was determined to ignore the robot now and instead turned his full attention to Itara, who shuffled uncomfortably at the situation.

The room remained silent as they sat down and began eating, but Itara eventually looked up again, asking, "How could you tell?"

Mira looked up from his plate and towards the little girl between him and his wife, "tell what?"

"That RK was a robot."

"I repair them, it wasn't hard to work out."

"You do?!"

"Yes," though he seemed concerned with this question, "do you… really not remember?" Itara's head only tilted to the side, causing him to sigh and set his silverware down, "I repair and build basic robots for everyday use, you were training to do the same, to take over for me someday. The day you went missing, in fact, I'd sent you into town to pick some pieces up for me… but you never came home." His ears flattened at the memory and Itara felt a hand on her shoulder, looking over she faced Kelly's saddened stare.

"Your dad spent _so_ long looking for you, kiddo. You have no idea how bad he felt… so don't… blame him… okay?"

Itara was taken aback at the sudden atmosphere, looking between the two, and before she could stop herself, found the words, "I'd never blame you…," slipping from her mouth. Her own eyes widened at the unexpected statement and quickly turned them down to her plate, "I-I mean… i-it…" She could feel all three sets of eyes on her as she poked at her food, searching for the correct response. She absolutely could _not_ get emotionally involved with these people, she had to keep a relative distance. "Robotnik just… he's the one to… to blame… it's not like you could… see the future," she offered. That was it. That was her drawn line. Her real dad _could_ see the future, the past, the possibilities… this was not her dad, this was not her family. Looking up again, she smiled, "you aren't a… time traveler, after all."

The air remained strained for a short time afterwards, despite Itara's attempts to quell it, but after they finished dinner and were sitting, making small talk, the awkwardness that hung in the air finally dissolved. Mira and Kelly continued questioning Itara on her past, what she could remember, and Itara continued taking real situations either out of context or twisting them to make them sound… less God-influenced. Eventually, the conversation fell on her education and she was quickly reminded about the entire point of the earlier shopping trip as her posture dropped and her ears flattened.

"Right… I need to start _school_ soon," she mumbled, crossing her arms and glaring towards RK, who only shrugged.

"Start? You aren't _in_ school already?" Mira exclaimed, clearly shocked.

"W-well… n-no… not… er, exactly?"

"I didn't think it safe for her to be in the public eye for too long, all things considered," RK offered, catching Mira's attention. "But she," he looked towards the pouting girl before nearly grinning, "expressed interest in attending school recently, so I was looking into the possibilities." Itara's glare was hard to miss, but he only found it slightly entertaining. She couldn't exactly argue, it could raise too many questions they couldn't answer right now and she knew it.

"Well, we're going to get right on that, then," Mira stated, looking back at Itara, "I'll get you enrolled in the best school around here, don't you worry." Itara only shrunk further. Fantasitc. Please, please Solaris, let her powers return soon! "With that in mind," Mira suddenly added, turning back towards RK again, "I believe it'd be best if Itara stayed here, with us, from now on. I refuse to let my baby girl out of my sight again. So either I come stay with you, or she stays here." It didn't sound like he was willing to discuss the matter and his mind was made up, but Itara expressed immediate concern over the idea. She wasn't sure she wanted to stay somewhere so unfamiliar, nice as it was, but her arguments were shot down quickly. RK, on the other hand, remained silent as he considered it. Well, he had already looked into this possibility. He was prepared to deal with this.

"Very well-"

"RK?"

"But, I'd like to keep my eye on her, as well. I'd also like to make sure nothing happens to her again."

Mira considered it, eyeing him, "you're surprisingly attached for a robot."

"I've heard this." Usually from a particular doll. But he wouldn't budge on the matter, not only had Solaris, himself, asked him to keep an eye on Itara, he had long since decided he would never allow harm to befall her again. Not from Robotnik, not from Mephiles, not from Shadow, not even Solaris. This mobian family knew so little about the enemies Itara really had, Robotnik was child's play in comparison.

The topic was debated for several, long minutes, but the two eventually reached an agreement. Itara would be staying there, and, while RK would not, he would visit her regularly to make sure she was safe. RK promised to bring her things over to the manor before returning home for evening. Itara wasn't sure how she felt about the idea, but conceded after her arguments continued to fall on deaf ears. RK and Mira hashed out further details while Kelly pulled Itara away to talk to her, or rather, to try and calm some of her worries.

"This must be a lot for you to take in, I'm sure," she offered, crouching down beside the young hedgehog, "but those two care a lot about you, trust me, so no matter where you're at, you'll be safe. I know you know this." She smiled and reached up, rubbing the girl's head, "we're so glad to have you home, kiddo. If there's anything you need at all, just let us know, okay? _Anything_."

Itara stared at her, continuously confused and unsure how to respond to anything, but offered a slow nod. She wasn't sure what to make of anything, or how to handle the situation, but maybe a good night's sleep was all she needed. But would she be able to sleep in such a strange place? Well, she'd certainly slept in _worse_ places. Even an unfamiliar, massive, silk bed was an improvement over the original timeline. More than anything, though, she wasn't fond of the idea of being so far from RK. Kipper she could just have him bring for her, but RK needed to stay at the base with Sparky.

Once RK and Mira had debated all they could and decisions were finally made, RK dropped Itara's newly bought clothes off in her new room before heading out. Itara followed him to the door, making sure he grabbed Kipper for her and he was properly connected to her phone in case anything happened, then watched him take off across the path. But as his long, furry tail disappeared out of her sight, worry spread through her again. She couldn't keep track of anything, there were no warning signs of things to come, anything could happen at any point and not only would she never see it coming, but she wouldn't be able to fix or avoid it. As her thoughts ran away with her, a hand on her shoulder jolted her back to the present and she looked up, meeting Mira's gaze.

"Come back inside, standing out in the cold like this will get you sick."

Itara wasn't even sure she was capable of getting sick as she never had before, but nodded and followed him back to the sitting room. Kelly was lounging across one of the couches, having changed into a far more comfortable long t-shirt and pulled out her phone to mess with. Itara decided to walk around the room to inspect it more as Mira went over to argue with Kelly about her lack of pants, though it sounded like they'd been through the conversation many times before and were going through a predetermined script rather than a real argument. Itara ignored them and walked over to the large, empty fireplace, staring at the pristine stones that showed no sign of previous use.

Of course, it was the end of summer and the sun had been shining far brighter than ever before, so a fire was wholly unnecessary, but the fireplace almost looked newly built rather than unused for a season.

"Are you cold? I could light a fire if you'd like."

The comment caught Itara off-guard again as she looked over, "o-oh, no… I just… it… looks new? Unused?"

Kelly laughed, an unexpected reaction for Itara, "that's because your dad needs everything in a perfect, pristine condition at all points ever. Even the fireplace gets regularly scrubbed. One thing amiss and he loses his shit."

"Language," Mira hissed, but turned his attention back to Itara, "I do like things very clean, though. Luckily, the sun has been so warm this year we haven't needed much heating even at night."

"The Sun God's either feeling temperamental or in a particularly good mood this year," Kelly commented, getting a small smile from Itara as she turned back towards the fireplace to hide her grin. The three sat up talking until RK returned to drop off Itara's things, Itara grabbing Kipper quickly as the robot took her small bag of items up to her new room. Kelly studied the doll curiously when she noticed the girl squeezing it so tightly and wasted little time in prodding. Or calling it creepy. Itara just half-laughed.

"This is Kipper. He's also my …dear friend," she explained, giving the doll a tight squeeze, mentally asking him to behave until she could explain the situation to him, hoping he would hear it.

"You've made some strange friends, Itara."

Itara only smirked and followed RK back to the door, silently questioning him about Metal Sonic, though he quickly assured her that everything was fine back at the base. It seemed the other damaged robot was still a long ways to waking. Once everything was finalized and confirmed, RK made his exit once more and Itara decided she wanted some time alone and headed for her new bedroom. Being as it was late enough, she bid her 'parents' goodnight and quickly retreated to the large bedroom, locking the door and climbing up onto the far side of the bed. As soon as she did so, the red gem attached to Kipper began glowing and the little doll floated up out of her arms, his lifeless eyes gaining some form of rejuvenation.

"So, what's goin' on, brat? Mama Bear said you'd explain."

Itara hushed him, but then went into a quiet explanation of the situation, not wanting the two mobians to overhear their conversation and catch on. The doll went silent for some time after she finished, considering it carefully before grinning a fang-filled grin, "Oh, so that's it, huh? Well this ought to be entertaining, then."

The doll explored the room, Itara joining him after a moment, as they looked around to get a better idea of the girl who once lived there. Even though she had been gone so many years, someone had kept the room in peak condition and not a single spider's web was to be found in even the most hidden of corners, amazing Itara. There would be a lot to learn about this family, but first she needed to decide how deep she even wanted to go with this. Even if they could be useful to her, somehow, how well would she be able to keep up this ruse? Finally grabbing Kipper and setting her phone on one of the nightstands beside the bed, she crawled under the heavy blankets and curled up with the doll, drifting through her thoughts and the day's events until she finally drifted off to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

When Itara next awoke she laid in bed, staring up at the bright ceiling through the sheer fabric draped over the posts. She could see Kipper 'asleep', lying across the pillow from the corner of her eye… but that was the only familiar thing she could see. Even after she took a few minutes to remember the events of the previous day, she remained stationary, staring off, still very unsure of how to handle the coming day. She couldn't help but think back to all the unfamiliar places she'd 'woken up' to and had to admit, this was easily the nicest yet, but it continued to be off-putting.

It wasn't until there was a knock at the bedroom door that she finally pushed herself up, listening to see who it was, then called out to let them in. It was Mira. He was carrying a small, very finely polished silver tray with an almost too-colorful palette of food for breakfast. Itara could only stare in bewilderment. RK always made her _get up_ for breakfast, claiming it was better for biological creatures to get the early movement in, and her breakfasts normally consisted of a small bowl of relatively cheap cereal and a glass of some variation of juice. Just like the giant, plush bed, the large, almost over-bearing window, and the brightly lit bedroom, Itara had no idea what to make of the food.

"Good morning, Itara." Mira seemed even more hesitant than yesterday, though Itara couldn't pick out exactly why. "I didn't want to wake you, but I did want to at least make sure you ate breakfast this morning so I figured I might as well bring it up to you. Did you sleep well?"

"O-Oh, uh… y-yes, yes I did," she stammered, looking off to the side before deciding it best to at least get out of bed. Crawling towards the edge, she swung her legs over the side and slid down, making sure to drag Kipper along with her. "Th-thank you."

Mira nodded, setting the tray on one of the small stands against the wall, "I'm glad to hear it." He seemed to want to say more, but decided against it and instead turned towards her and offered a small smile, "well, I'll let you eat and get dressed. When you're ready, I've cleared my schedule for the next couple days so I can spend them with you. I'll be downstairs in the parlor, just come and find me and we can do whatever you'd like, alright? Your mother likely won't be up for another couple hours, so it'll just be the two of us."

Mother. Itara had to chew over the word, it felt strange, hearing it relating to her. While she had always considered Mephiles, or rather, Solaris, to be her father, she'd never really had anything much like a mother. She wasn't a normal creation, after all. If she had to consider it, if Mephiles was her father, being a part of him, then the other person directly involved in her creation was… well, a robot. Then there was the fact that Kipper always called RK a 'mama bear'. Did that mean she had two robot 'mothers' and half a god for a father? She shook the thought from her head, deciding it silly. RK was her robotic companion, Sparky was a broken mess of nuts and bolts, and her only parent was Mephiles. Or, Solaris.

Once Itara was done wracking her brain for answers that made no sense, she made her way through her breakfast, dug through the clothes she and RK had bought yesterday, and got dressed to head downstairs. But what would she even do today? Mira had said 'whatever she'd like' but, what was that? Perhaps, she could just get to know the family better, see what sort of potential connections they had, what knowledge they held, see how they could be useful, if they could. Nodding, she headed downstairs, cautiously, and easily enough found Mira sitting, reading, in the parlor. She studied him, trying to remain critical and detached from the situation, trying to gauge his personality from afar.

Unlike Kelly, who had slouched and splayed out across the couch yesterday, Mira sat up straight, yet comfortably, in an armchair, his legs crossed as he focused on the book on front of him. Itara leaned to the side to read the title and found that the book seemed to be some sort of extensive study on robotics. Well, he did mention yesterday that he built and repaired robots, Itara just didn't expect it to be a 'casual morning reading' sort of topic. As she stood, studying him, she noticed his ear turn towards her and decided it was time to make her presence known… well, more known.

"How was breakfast?"

"It was- it was good… thank you."

Mira nodded and closed his book, setting it aside as he stood up, offering a very slight smile, "so is there anything you'd like to do today? I could take you on a full tour of the house, or we could go somewhere else, or you could do something in your room, if you'd rather that, it's entirely up to you."

"I'd… like to," Itara began, fidgeting with the edge of her shirt, "I want to… I'd l-like to learn m-more about you. I'd like to learn more a-about both of y-you so, ah, uh." She huffed slightly. It was so difficult to sound sincere when she was stuttering like this. What if he suspected something because of this awful stutter? But she couldn't do anything about it, she'd been trying. Sighing, she looked back up at Mira to study his reaction, though faced a bittersweet smile rather than suspicion.

"Of course," he finally breathed out, motioning for her to follow him, "I'll tell you anything you don't remember. Let's take a walk." Itara nodded and quickly followed after him as he began explaining the basics about himself. He had been born into a high class family but had moved out and made his own fortune at a young age when he began repurposing old, destroyed robots. He had met Kelly when one of his backwards engineered robots malfunctioned and destroyed the center it was supposed to have been shown off at. He refused to go into much further detail regarding the situation so Itara decided she would ask Kelly later whenever an opportunity arose. He seemed flustered by the memory so Itara thought it might be better to ask when he wasn't around.

As they talked, Mira led them around the gardens and pointed out that all of the more artistic decisions had been made by Kelly, while he had simply decided on the general placements. They seemed to do as much of the work as possible, themselves, which Itara certainly hadn't expected. They made their way back towards the house and Mira continued explaining about his work, his most recent projects, the projects he had been working on when she disappeared, as well as the ones she had apparently helped him with, all in hopes that it would jog her memory. From what Itara could tell, the mobian girl seemed to spend a _lot_ of time with her father before she disappeared, though she would need to double-check that with Kelly later, as well.

Returning to the house, Mira led her to his laboratory, thinking a direct example of their work together might spur more of a memory jog than just talking about it. The laboratory took up the entirety of the house's basement, stretching far on either side and filled with all manner of tech. Computer screens that reached nearly the height of a wall, walls of tightly guarded chemicals and specimens, long, safely tucked away cables of varying sizes, and a stretch of test tubes, not unlike the one Itara broke out of. It caused a slight chill to run up her spine at the memory.

Mira led her carefully through the lab, pointing out every robot, both large and small, that she had anything to do with, and Itara could do nothing but gape at the advancements these two had made. Some of these robots put most of Robotnik's creations to shame. She was glad they weren't bent on world domination like Robotnik was, she didn't think the entirety of Sonic's friends could handle both parties at the same time. She even noticed some distinctly Robotnik-designed bots lying about. When Itara asked about them, Mira explained that Robotnik's robots were his main source of material.

That meant he was not only familiar with robotics, in general, but specifically Robotnik's. Itara finally had a decent idea of where she could take the situation, as long as she was careful.

"So, …you must be p-pretty familiar with-with his work, huh?"

"Sometimes more than I'd like to be, yes."

"You work on his s-smaller creations, but… have you ever worked on… anything big?"

"Occasionally. Why?"

"I was… j-just curious I just… have you ever… r-run across… M-Metal S-Sonic?"

Mira was silent, considering the question, and turned away from her to study the other robots. Itara was curious, a silence this long normally meant something. She was fully aware that it was Metal Sonic who kidnapped her namesake, but given that they didn't even know she was with Robotnik, they didn't know that. Perhaps he suspected, now that she'd told him and brought Metal Sonic up, perhaps he was considering this answer now, but either way, Itara was curious.

After some time, Mira finally responded with a surprisingly dark tone, "I have. But it's not a memory I'd like to repeat. Perhaps I'll tell you about it later, but let's change the subject for now." So there was a story. Instead of waiting, she may just have RK look into it. For the meantime, however, she simply nodded and his tone lightened again, "I have an idea… why don't you help me with one of my current projects again?"

"What?"

"It may help your memory, getting into something you used to do."

While Itara was almost entirely sure she wouldn't be getting the mobian girl's memories at any point, she hadn't up until now, she doubted she would all of a sudden, even with all these 'reminders', she did have to consider the offer. It was likely, even if she remembered nothing, she could possibly _learn_ something, and repairing both RK and Metal Sonic could become that much easier in the long run. It could be useful practice, so what would be the harm? Nodding, she agreed and followed Mira to the other side of the lab where his current projects were set up near one of the larger computers. Pulling an extra chair from under the stairway, Mira set it up beside his work chair and they both sat down to get started.

For the better part of two hours, the two of them made slow, careful progress on the easier of the projects. Mira had to explain far more than he expected he would, though Itara picked it up quickly once he did, though the project was so advanced that by the time Kelly made her way down to look for them, they had barely actually gotten past an explanation of the basics. Despite that, however, Mira seemed far less frustrated than Itara expected him to be. With all the slow, in-depth explanation she needed, she expected him to get tired of it and do something else after the first half an hour. Instead, he made sure she understood everything he was saying before moving on, even if he had to repeat himself. He even got up and found an empty notebook for her to take notes in.

"And here I thought you didn't remember anything," Kelly accused smugly, walking down the stairs to the lab.

Itara and Mira both turned back towards her questioningly. "So you finally decided to get out of bed?"

"Nah, I'm still in bed, I'm a ghost," she grinned, walking over and taking a quick peak at whatever they were working on before shaking her head and looking to Itara, "I wanted to see if you were up and I couldn't find you in your room or anywhere else… I should have known the nerd would drag you down to the nerd cave first thing in the morning."

"Kelly, it's not a cave, it's a lab," Mira scowled, but stood up and shook his head, looking to Itara, as well, "and I didn't drag her anywhere, she wanted to come learn."

"Even without a memory, you're still a nerd," Kelly laughed, "come on, your robot's waiting upstairs, why don't we go up and meet him and have some lunch?"

"R-RK is here?"

"Yeah, just got here as I was comin' downstairs." Itara nodded and got up, looking to Mira to make sure he was done talking. He simply nodded and pat her head, stopping Itara in her tracks for a brief moment, before she took off up the stairs to go meet with RK. As she disappeared up the stairs, Kelly and Mira stayed behind a moment to watch her, Kelly crossing her arms as a relieved smile came to her face. "I guess once a daddy's girl, always a daddy's girl, huh?"

"It certainly is relieving." Mira turned to her and they exchanged glances before he grabbed her hand and headed up the stairs, "I suppose I'd better get some lunch started."

"Definitely. I'm starving!"

"Then maybe you should get up at _breakfast_ like a normal person for once."

"Mira! I am insulted! I've never been normal a day in my life." Mira rolled his eyes and Kelly laughed as they ascended the stairs, coming out into the main living room again where Itara was talking with RK.

"A-And I think I understand m-most of it so far, so if-if I keep learning more… I can repair and upgrade you much better than… I had before," Itara was explaining with a hint of excitement at the potential.

"I'm glad to hear it," RK nodded, looking up from her to nod at Mira and Kelly, then returned his gaze to Itara, "I'm glad to hear you're getting along well here so far. It seems to be an advantageous environment for you."

"Of course it is," Mira interrupted, releasing his wife's hand to head for the kitchen, "I'll be making lunch, so if you'll excuse me." RK and Itara turned towards him and nodded before giving their attention to Kelly, who went over to slump across the couch. It seemed to be a very natural position for her.

"So what are your plans for the rest of the day, then, kiddo? Were you gonna go back down to the lab with your dad after lunch or did you wanna do anything else?"

"O-oh, uh," Itara went into thought, considering it. Well, she did like learning with Mira, but she also wanted to know as much as she could about both of them. Perhaps she could ask Kelly that question now. Walking over and sitting on the foot stool in front of the couch, Itara studied her before asking, "Mira was… he told me about… how you met and," she could already see the grin spreading across Kelly's face, apparently this was quite the story, "he… omitted a few… details, I think."

Kelly burst into laughter at this, sitting up and shifting her position, "oh, I bet he did! Your dad doesn't like admitting he makes mistakes, and normally I let them slide because they really do happen pretty rarely, but man, _that_ day was a mess! Plus, it's hysterical and I love it. Alright, so your dad rebuilds from old, broken robots, right?" Itara nodded. "Well, _way_ back when, I guess it was his first nerd convention or whatever, and he brought one of his repaired robots. Except it wasn't totally repaired and malfunctioned _hard_ right before it was supposed to get shown off. It started rampaging through that building like nobody's business, though, to be fair, I think that idiot Robotnik was up to something at the same time so I think he actually might have caused your dad's robot to get set off or something, I don't know. I'm not a dweeb.

"Anyway, point is, it went ballistic. Everyone went running and screaming… except your stubborn ass dad. He was _determined_ to fix the robot before it could go far so the idiot stayed near it, chasing after it with his dumb little remote or whatever. Now, I don't do nerd conventions, I wasn't there for that, I just happened to be around because there was this… ah… well, anyway, I was just around. Didn't matter why," Kelly turned a bit red before she shook her head and continued, "so I was just walking around when I hear this commotion going on down the street and decide to investigate, it sounded like shenanigans and I was curious."

It seemed both of them had a penchant for trouble, if Itara had to guess. But she said nothing and let Kelly continue. "So I head down the street and there's this massive butt of a robot, swinging these huge arms around at everything within reach and behind it is this tiny ass dork, pressing buttons at this behemoth of a killing machine, completely oblivious to the fact that he's about to get _smacked across the galaxy_ if he doesn't fuckin' _move_!" RK was decently sure it was impossible to smack someone across a galaxy so easily, but he assumed she was exaggerating and also chose to say nothing.

"S-so… what… what did you d-do?"

"Well, everyone else was running the opposite direction and I didn't think he was gonna wise up any time soon, and you think your dad's small now, he was even smaller then. Little twig of a nerd. So I figured it was up to me and I ran right past that giant killing machine, picked your dad right up, slung his argumentative ass over my shoulder, and got the fuck out of there before his head got knocked clean off his shoulders. Kicking and screaming, the entire way, so _determined_ he could fix that damn robot. It didn't take a damn scientist to see the stupid thing was on the verge of blowing, and blow it did, just after I picked him up and started running. We didn't even get out of the blast radius, we just got far enough to not get caught up in the explosion, itself."

Itara could only stare. She was completely bewildered. Mira seemed so level-headed and logical, but he could very well have died if Kelly hadn't literally dragged him away from an explosion, it sounded. No wonder he seemed so perturbed by the incident.

Kelly just gave another laugh and laid back again, "he was so pissed at me. Instead of thanking me for literally saving his life, he bitched me out for like, two hours. I was utterly baffled, and pissed, back then, but now I just think it's funny whenever I think back on it. His face was so damn cute, even all bruised and scuffed up. He's got a scary temper sometimes, but I just think he's cute when he's mad. Makes it fun, and easy, to pick on him." Kelly started to stare off, the amused smile never leaving her face, as Itara glanced back at RK. She'd never seen such an oddly mismatched, yet somehow fitting, couple in her long, constantly repeating life.

After her stare-off with space, Kelly decided to regale a few more tales for the two, mostly about her and Mira's past, until she stopped suddenly mid-sentence and her expression shifted drastically. Her previous elated amusement became a solemn frown as she questioned, "I… don't suppose you remember… Merix… do you?"

Itara was caught so off-guard by her sudden change, she had to take a moment to even register her question. Once she did, though, she shook her head, the name didn't ring any bells, as she assumed most wouldn't. Kelly's mood dropped even further at her answer as she stared off to the side, "Oh… well, uh, he was… he was a close friend of ours, he was really protective over you, he almost never left your side."

"Where… is he now, then?"

"We don't know," Kelly sighed, crossing her arms and looking out towards the window, "when you went missing, he went on a _relentless_ search. He sort of… lost it… after a certain point, when we couldn't find you… he took off and we haven't seen him since. We tried looking for him, too, but nothing ever came up. It was like you both dropped off the face of the earth all of a sudden. It was a pretty big blow to us both, I couldn't get your dad to sleep for like, three, four days? It was terrible."

Itara remained silent, going into thought, herself, wondering if it was possible that this Merix person had also somehow become involved with Robotnik's schemes. She knew nothing about him, so she couldn't say for sure, but perhaps she would look into it for them. Or rather, have RK look into it. As they were silently thinking it over, Mira returned to the room to announce lunch but stopped when he sensed the sullen air around the room. When he questioned what happened, though, Kelly snapped back out of her thoughts and jumped up off the couch, grabbing Itara and carrying her, over her shoulder, to the dining room, seeming to perk up instantaneously. Mira only shook his head, far too used to his wife's sudden mood swings to even question it.

Most of lunch was spent with Mira and RK discussing Itara's potential school and what the safest mode of transportation would be, taking Robotnik and his schemes into consideration. Itara, on the other hand, not wanting to hear anything more about going to school, decided to spend more time digging into Kelly and her mannerisms. She had already figured out Mira's potential usefulness, now she needed to see if Kelly had any. Unfortunately, she found out, they were complete polar opposites. While Mira was calculating, composed, and thoughtful, Kelly was a wild mess of nonsense. But that meant she was likely to be easily manipulated, Itara figured, and knew she'd be able to find a use for her.

The rest of the day, Mira and RK continued their debates and discussions, Mira inviting him down to the lab at one point, and so Itara remained upstairs with Kelly to study her further. It didn't take long for Kelly to move to a previously unexplored room and reveal the wide open art studio. One entire wall was glass, putting the expansive forest behind the house on display and flooding the room with plenty of natural light. Itara easily spotted the similar tastes between this room and the more decorative details of what had become her bedroom. It seemed Kelly had a strong sense of design to make up for her lack of attentiveness otherwise.

At one point, while Itara cautiously snooped through the room and Kelly continued work on a large painting near the window, Itara happened upon a series of drawings featuring the sea, various naval officers, and even some sea-faring pirates. While all the drawings she'd found so far were considerably well-done, this set struck her fancy the most… for some reason.

"Find something you like over there, kiddo?" Itara wasn't sure how she felt about constantly being called 'kiddo'. Despite her appearance, she was decently sure she was considerably older than both the hedgehog parents. But she couldn't reveal that so she would have to hold her tongue about it.

"Just… just curious… that's all."

Though she attempted to remain inconspicuous about it, Kelly put her brush down and walked over to see what she was looking at and while Itara quickly shut the notebook to put it back, it seemed the other recognized it, anyway. She laughed and reached for the book again, looking at the sketches herself, before going into thought, "you know, now that you mention it..." She hadn't said anything. "That robot guy _does_ look an awful lot like a pirate…"

Itara turned a bit red in the face, looking away.

Kelly laughed again and held the book out to her, "you can keep ahold of that if you'd like. This was one of my favorite studies to do so I'm glad you seem to like them." She smiled warmly down at the little one, holding the book out to her, causing the blood to rush to Itara's face, her hands shaky as they reached to take the book, staring up at her. She wasn't sure how to respond to this. Why would she just give this to her?

"I… why would…?"

"Your room's always needed some more drawings in them, anyway. I know you always got frustrated when you tried, but you know—" she stopped, realizing Itara probably didn't know, anymore, and corrected herself, "well, I don't mind letting you decorate with mine until you make something you want to hang up, yourself." When the book was properly in Itara's hands, Kelly reached out and rubbed her head, mussing her hair, "lemme know if you wanna do anything, yourself. There's plenty here to work with: charcoal, oil pastels, pencils, pens, all kinds of markers, paints, sketchbooks, canvases… I think I even still have some crayons stored in the dresser there for you, if you want to work with those. Your coloring books should be in there with them. Feel free to explore, kiddo."

Coloring books? Crayons? Itara's head tilted to the side as she turned to investigate, wondering what exactly she was expected to do with something like that. Did they expect her to just sit and color like some kind of chi- oh, well, yes, they would, actually. Reaching the dresser Kelly pointed to, she set the book on a stand beside it and dug around, looking for said book and coloring utensils, pulling a thick book and large box out, looking over them, and grabbing the sketchbook again to find a place to sit down and… inspect things further.

In addition to the several easels set up around the room, there was also a full sized desk with a mess of materials spread all over it and a smaller desk near it, a desk about her size, that was more neatly organized with a canister of pencils, pens, and an eraser carefully and specifically placed at the back. Walking over, Itara set her items down, arranging them carefully on the desk, before sitting in the sturdy, high-backed desk chair. Opening the coloring book, she flipped through the first few pages, finding several badly colored pages, though all the activities throughout the book were done far more carefully and neatly. Itara's ears flattened when she saw that all the activities, such as the word searches and jumbles, were already done, and resigned herself to some coloring, instead.

Reaching over and grabbing the box of crayons, she opened it and found a full box of carefully retained crayons in a perfect gradient order. If it weren't for the fact that the box was already opened, Itara would have assumed it was a brand new box. Glancing at Kelly, and her many high-grade supplies strewn messily around the room with no sign of existing order, Itara assumed she likely didn't buy the box of children's crayons for herself. Turning back to the book, Itara found the first empty page with a robot line drawing, grabbed a bright red crayon, and got to work. She'd color-coded her notes in her journal several times, but she'd never actually sat down and just… _colored_ … before. She wasn't even sure she was doing it right.

Time passed and the natural light from the glass wall started falling, prompting Kelly to turn the room's actual lights on, stopping on her way back to see what the tiny child at the desk was so fervently working on. She stood over her for a few moments, leaning curiously to see what she was doing, before giving a small chuckle, startling the little girl who hadn't noticed her sudden approach. When Itara questioned her about it, however, Kelly just smiled again, shook her head, and told her to continue her work as she, herself, moved back to her painting on the other side of the room. Itara eyed her a moment, before getting lost in her drawing again.

Itara wasn't sure how much time had passed, but just as she was starting to find herself hungry, Mira appeared in the studio door, knocking on the frame and looking in on the two, announcing dinner.

"Oh, good, I was just getting hungry," Kelly answered, cleaning her paint brush off to set it down again, turning towards him, "what's on the menu today?"

"You'll see when you get down there," Mira stated matter-of-factly as he approached the desk Itara was seated at, "have you been drawing this entire time?"

Itara turned red again as she realized just how lost she'd gotten in her project and shuffled quickly to close the book before anyone could see, unsure how she felt about having anyone judge her first attempt at it. She gave a mumbled response, scrambling out of the chair and picking up the book Kelly had given her, looking up at Mira, before glancing back down at the book. She didn't want to carry this to the table. "D-Do you… m-mind if I… drop th-this by my… room first?"

"Of course not, go ahead and get washed up, we'll meet you downstairs in the kitchen," Mira responded, patting her head before turning towards the door, Kelly following after him. Itara watched them go for a moment, waiting until she could no longer hear their footsteps before running out and down the hall to her bedroom, shutting the door quickly behind her and walking to the bed, sighing heavily. As soon as she arrived, Kipper 'woke up' and looked her over, grinning.

"Have fun playing house today, _kiddo_?"

Itara frowned indignantly, placing the book carefully on the bed, "I-I wasn't… I wasn't playing… anything, Kipper. I was just- I was making… I'm making sure they… don't suspect anything, th-that's all."

"Sure, sure you are."

She huffed and reached for the doll, swiping him into her arms and squeezing tightly, "no one… asked you, Kipper. Now behave. I need- I want dinner." With that, she freed the doll again, letting him float back above the bed, as she returned to the door to meet everyone for food. She was curious if RK was still around, not having realized how long she spent up in the studio, and wondered what he had talked to Mira about the entire time. She got the answer to one of those questions as soon as she met the tall red robot at the bottom of the stairs and got the answer to the other once they sat down for dinner.

Much to her dismay, Mira and RK heavily debated every possible situation and detail regarding her going to school and came up with several fail-safes to make sure she would face as few possible dangers as they could manage. Mira informed RK which school would be best for Itara to attend, letting RK heavily research the school in question, before they discussed transportation and how and when it would be best for RK to be around. They informed her, and Kelly, of their many decisions once they sat down to eat. Kelly seemed far less concerned than the other two, seeming to trust Mira to make the best decisions, but Itara was already tired of this school concept before she even went.

Sure, it was at Solaris' request that she go to school, and this would keep her cover as their normal, missing child, but it sounded awful. Especially considering she would likely be in a class of mobians around her physical age, meaning a bunch of young, ill-informed, rowdy brats that Itara was far past, mentally. They would know even less of Solaris, robotics, or even Robotnik than the adult mobians or even the humans did and she wasn't looking forward to spending several hours a day _for an entire week_ with them.

But she couldn't say much in argument against it, besides voicing her disdain at the whole idea in general, because not only could she not let on her true disinterest in mortal life, but also because she couldn't argue with Solaris. He wanted her in a normal school for a reason. She didn't know what, exactly, that reason was as he didn't specify, but if he wanted her there, she was sure it was for a reason and she would need to do her best in whatever it was. But she didn't have to like it.

Dinner passed and eventually RK stood to leave, though Itara followed him to the door again as she hadn't had much time to talk to him during the day. Once she was out of earshot of the others, she asked him about the day's events and conversations, asking if they talked about anything _other_ than the awful school. She also made sure to find out about Metal Sonic's state, as well.

"For the most part," RK began, "we just discussed you and the best way to keep you safe from Robotnik's eyesight. Though the situation regarding _Mephiles_ is no longer an issue, according to my records you were, or rather, your body, was kidnapped long before the scepter was ever retrieved so it's likely that wasn't his only plan. I was able to offer further insight into Robotnik's… resources… without giving away too much so we could best plan for all eventualities, though."

Itara sighed in annoyance, "okay… fine… but what about Sparky?"

"Still unresponsive. It'll be awhile still before his systems are repaired enough to activate." Nodding, Itara went into thought until RK suddenly crouched to meet her as eye-to-eye as he could, "how are you doing here?"

"It's been… informative. They certainly have p-potential, I-"

"No, Itara, I mean how have you been doing _emotionally_? I don't want to know about them, I want to know about you." Itara only blinked in response, her head tilting slightly in confusion. Emotionally? Why would her emotional state matter in this situation? What mattered was whether they could leverage this situation to be useful, not whether she was… emotionally… stable? RK seemed to pick up on her confusion and further questioned, "do you like being here?"

"Well, it's not… t-terrible," she stammered, looking towards the other room then back, "but I don't… that doesn't much… m-matter, does it?"

"It does."

"Why?"

RK studied her before shaking his head and patting hers, standing back up, "you'll understand later." Itara narrowed her eyes. She hated this claim. He knew she hated it, as well, because he only started doing this to her after she lost her ability to time travel. He knew that fact infuriated her and he was taunting her with it. When he noticed this glare, as well, he just smirked and turned towards the door, "get some rest, Itara. You've got a long day ahead of you tomorrow and you're going to need the energy."

Itara's lips pursed in a tight line as she glared after him, waiting for him to close the front door behind him before returning to the sitting room, finding Mira and Kelly sitting across from each other, engaged in a minor debate again. Itara only stopped to listen for a moment before announcing that she was going to bed early, grabbing their attention and bringing their mock debate to a halt.

"Would you like one of us to come tuck you in?"

"No, that's… that's fine," Itara explained, attempting to keep the confusion off her face at the offer, "goodnight. See you in—in the morning."

"Goodnight, Itara."

"'Night, kiddo!"

Itara nodded and turned around, heading up the stairs and reaching her bedroom before long. She had a brief discussion with Kipper about the next day's events, squeezing him again for mocking her, before changing and crawling into the bed, setting the book of sketches on the nightstand. Once she was properly buried in the huge covers on the giant bed, she closed her eyes for a moment to think, but opened them again to stare up at the floating doll above her head.

"Kipper?"

"Yes, _kiddo_?"

"Do you… remember the other… timeline?"

"Which one?"

"T-the one when… you and RK s-saved me… in the—the alternate future?"

The doll remained silent, seeming to debate, though it just stared at her with its dead, soulless eyes as it did so. After an uncomfortable amount of time, it finally grinned and responded, "nope. Sure don't. Why would I do that?"

Itara's mouth drew in a line as she glared up at the doll above her, but her expression softened again as she recalled the alternate timeline. While she couldn't look forward in current or future ones at the moment, she could at least still recall the past ones, though she seemed to be the only one at times. RK was a robot and only needed to update his files about the lost events regarding Mephiles, a being that, in this timeline, never existed in the first place, but Kipper and other more organic creatures couldn't. While Kipper was special and could recall certain moments in the previous main timeline, even he couldn't recall all of them so she was often left alone in her memories.

Sighing, she turned on her side and closed her eyes again, "this bed is… much more c-comfortable… than the others." The doll gave no response, but moved to sit on the pillow beside her, giving her the opportunity to grab him and hug him close to her, despite the grunt of annoyance it got from him. His crystal's glow dimmed as he went into a state of slumber, however, so Itara decided it was time that she, too, went to sleep. Sometimes it was hard to discern between reality and her nightmares of the alternate timelines, but somehow, the heavy weight of the encompassing comforter lulled her into a much calmer sleep than she was used.

She slept well that night.


	4. Chapter 4

Fire scorched the sky and devastated the land below, wreaking havoc on the world and destroying all living inhabitants. Great whirlwinds of fire and ash whipped through destroyed cities, terrifying beasts of molten lava prowled the ruins of an old society, smoke and haze consumed the once breathable air of the forests. Only decay and destruction remained the world over. A mistake of the past brought about an irreparable future and those who somehow remained during these times struggled against fate every moment.

Amongst them, a small child awoke to an empty, abandoned makeshift shelter, consisting of large cement slabs having fallen in against one another to create the tiny space. It was far from the comforts of a home, but it provided as much protection as was possible in this time. Not that the girl knew of anything else in the first place. Her immediate panic upon waking wasn't from the absolute destruction of her surroundings, but from the emptiness of the small area. No signs of another living being were to be seen, despite the young girl's cries for a handful of names, and her only response was the furious growl of a nearby tornado.

The small girl's cries softened soon, as slow realization came over her, and she clumsily and slowly returned to the furthest corner of the shelter to curl back up into the ball she slept in. Saddened green and purple eyes stared out at the hole of the entrance as she made no more efforts to move from her position.

"They've… l-left me… again…"

As if in response to this, another growl echoed from just outside the entrance and before the young girl even had time to uncurl from her position, the cement slabs were blown away, leaving her in the open with no form of defense against the environment… or the angry, molten creatures that approached from all sides. Fear struck through her entire being, chilling every drop of blood in her body, allowing her only response enough to curl further in on herself and await the oncoming attack. The unfiltered heat bore down on her as the creatures' breaths wisped through her fur, getting little more than a whimper from their prey.

But as the threat of death drew nearer, the creatures suddenly stopped and backed away again. Without a word, heavy clawed feet tapped further and further until they stopped and the terrified child forced one eye open to find out why. The fiery creatures were still nearby, but sat several feet away in the large circle they'd formed and just ahead of the creatures, staring down at the girl with blazing green eyes, was the mouthless face she recognized above all else. Shakily rising to her feet and scrambling towards him, her relief showing from the gleam in her eyes to her opening posture, she called out with a trembling voice to him, though he made no effort to meet her halfway.

When she was nearly within arm's length of him, though the girl paid no mind to it, the scenery shifted to a long forgotten past, when the grass still grew, trees grew tall and strong, and the sky was a calming blue instead of the inferno she'd come to know. A cool breeze rustled through her unkempt spines, further calming her as she reached out to him… only for a sudden, sharp pain to stop her from reaching him. He made no movement to meet her hand, only stared down with the furious gaze of an angered God; even as her hands moved to the gaping hole in her chest, her hands covered in her own blood, even as the pain of betrayal filled her gaze, he still made no movement towards her. He only stood over her and stared.

"D-Daddy…"

A pained cry rung out through the room as Itara shot up from the bed, her hand clutching her chest, tears stinging her eyes as she stared out, trying to grasp reality and calm her heavy breathing. It wasn't until the small yellow fox doll floated up into her line of sight that she finally snapped out of her thoughts enough to reach up and rub the tears from her eyes, her face flushing up from embarrassment.

"So… what did you dream about, huh?" the fox chided with his usual cruel amusement.

He got no response, however, as the little girl just curled into a ball, wrapping her arms around her head, her ears pressed tightly against her head. The doll gave a short laugh and moved back to the pillow behind her, "Mama Bear will be happy to hear you finally realize your mistake with him. Remind me to tell him when he comes over later."

This got the girl's attention as she reached back and grabbed the doll to toss him across the bed, though accomplished nothing of the sort as he just floated a few feet from her hand, laughing again. "D-Don't say… anything, Kipper…" The doll just grinned at her, but said nothing as a knock came from the door soon after, prompting the doll to drop back onto the bed. As much as he enjoyed mocking everyone, he _had_ agreed to remain under the family's detection so he would at least do that… for now.

"Itara? Are you alright?" Itara quickly rubbed her eyes as Mira peaked into the room, "I heard you yell, are you okay?"

"It… it was just… a…" Itara's shoulders dropped as she sighed, "a bad dream. I'm… I'm fine."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"N-no. No, that's fine. I'm… fine."

"Well… alright," Mira went silent for a moment, frowning as he considered what to say, but offered a small, awkward smile, "well, go ahead and get dressed and come eat. It's still a little early but we're going to take a look at your new school today and we wouldn't want to be late, alright?"

Itara nodded, avoiding eye contact, waiting until he had left before sighing heavily and reaching over to grab Kipper again, "Don't mention th-this t-to RK. He… he doesn't need… t-to know."

The doll just shrugged, "alright, fine. Don't get your t's in a twist." Itara scowled at the doll, she hated it when he mocked her stutter and he knew it but there was little she could do to get back at him at the time being. Once she got control over her powers, however, getting him back was top of her list. She was slow to get dressed, despite being ushered along by Mira earlier, as she was still distracted by her nightmare. It wasn't the first time she'd dreamt of the previous timeline, it probably wouldn't be the last, either, but it was the first time she'd dreamt of her father like that. Even after the incident, she just avoided thinking about it, she didn't like admitting it and she didn't appreciate her dream bringing it up.

She shook her head of her thoughts as she tied her quills up into a ribbon, "that's enough of that." Ignoring Kipper's further remarks, she headed downstairs, hardly surprised to see RK standing at the bottom, waiting for her, with Kelly. They were having a seemingly lively chat, or rather, Kelly was, with herself, RK remained silent throughout the 'conversation' until Itara made her appearance. She could almost see the relief on his face as he called attention to her, "Itara, good morning."

"Oh! Mornin' kiddo! How'd ya sleep?" Kelly exclaimed, twirling around to face the small girl, beaming brightly.

"I… I slept fine," Itara lied, looking between the two of them, glad she could blame her hesitation on her stutter for once. Kelly took it at face value, nodding and ushering towards the dining room so they could all eat breakfast. RK made an excuse to catch up, Itara doing the same, and waited until she was out of sight and apparently bothering Mira as they heard him complaining from the other room. Itara shook her head again and turned to RK, eyeing him, waiting for whatever it was he had to say.

"There are signs that Robotnik's on the move again, you should be cautious. I should stay with you today."

Itara thought it over, instinctively reaching for her book again only to realize it wasn't even on her. Without her abilities, her book had become utterly useless, remaining blank no matter what she did, and she'd finally decided to stop carrying it with her because of that. Crossing her arms to keep her hands busy, she huffed in slight annoyance before looking up, "perhaps you should. Has there been any progress with… Sparky yet?"

"None."

"It… may be good to… follow me, then." Itara huffed yet again, only growing more irritated with her stutter as each day passed. If Solaris had saved her and reset the timelines and given her a body back, why couldn't he fix her _stupid stutter_ while he was at it? Turning on her heel, a bit too quickly, she gave a small yelp as the floor advanced very suddenly towards her face. She never hit it, though, as RK had grabbed her and set her back on her feet. The entire ordeal only made her cry out in further frustration, gaining the other two's attention. They questioned her, but instead of answering, she simply stormed to the dining room to get something to eat, leaving RK to explain in her wake.

Breakfast went by both too quickly and too slowly for her liking, most conversations going in one ear and right out the other as she was too irritated to pay attention to anything, and before long they were in the car and headed to whatever school they felt it necessary to put her in. She wasn't overly pleased by that idea, either, and spent little time or energy responding to questions once they arrived. She vaguely recalled a headmaster of some description coming out to meet them, talk to her about something she hadn't paid attention to, and lead them around the school, mostly so her parents could see rather than any benefit meant for her. She would likely be lost immediately as soon as she returned, but she would worry about that later.

All she remembered was that the place was huge and gated.

If only they knew.

They thought they were so important now, but how full of themselves would they feel if they knew who she really was. Just being the 'daughter' of this family seemed to gain her a certain level of respect, but what if they knew she was far more than they believed. She wasn't just the daughter of some rich, important mobian. No, she was the daughter of Solaris. Daughter of the Sun God.

The reminder of her true origin brought her mood back to a tolerable one as she decided to listen to whatever remained of the tour, though it seemed to be nearing its end. She had to wonder, though, what Solaris' intent with all this actually was. Why did he want her to go to school, did he intend this school specifically or would any of them have worked fine? Why did he not give her powers back? Surely he would know she didn't have access to them and would easily be able to give her them back. Why did he keep her in the dark like this? She shook her head again, throwing the thoughts from her mind. There had to be a reason. Or perhaps he just didn't know. Anything was possible, really. She shouldn't get so worked up about it. She was sure her powers would return eventually.

Her 'parents' finished the day off by filling out forms, getting her measurements for whatever uniform was required for the school, and finally they left. Itara had never been so relieved to get in a car in her life. Admittedly, there hadn't been many actual opportunities for it before, but it didn't lessen her relief.

"Child."

She finally snapped out of her thoughts, having been called, and looked up… though confusion immediately came to her face. None of the three others were even looking her direction, caught in a conversation amongst themselves, even RK was talking. Her mouth opened to question why they had called her only to then ignore her, but the voice came once more, though didn't come from any of them.

"What are you doing?"

The disembodied voice was harsher than she had expected, her confusion only deepening as she could no longer hear the conversation between the others. Everything went silent besides that voice. "What do… do you mean?"

"Have you forgotten your purpose already? I'm disappointed."

It was only then Itara realized she recognized that harsh, cold tone. "Daddy! N-No! No, I d-didn't! Of course not!" She sat up straight, leaning against the seat belt as she looked around the car that seemed to be frozen in time, only she was moving now as she searched for the source of the voice. "I would n-never forget!"

"And yet, here you are… sitting around… doing nothing. You failed and now you do nothing to make up for it. You are a waste of my powers."

A burning, stinging suddenly sprung up, where she'd been wounded before, causing her to clutch her chest but continued looking for her father. "I… I'm s-sorry… I… I t-tried… b-but… daddy… Solaris… you're… you're supposed to be Solaris… why are… what happened?"

"Tried? Is that what you call that? I should have kept my focus on Shadow, you're worthless to me. If you can't even use them properly, give my powers back."

Itara looked down, shutting her eyes for only a moment, opening them only to find the fire-destroyed future once again. The car was gone, RK was gone, Mira and Kelly were gone. It was just her. She could feel the heat of the fires, feel the heavy winds, hear the tornadoes ripping through empty, collapsed buildings. Once more, she looked around, searching desperately, for RK, Solaris, her father, _anyone_ but found only several large lava monsters stalking towards her, their thin green eyes glowing hungrily as they scorched the path behind them. Itara took a step back, trying to summon her own dogs or open a portal, but nothing happened. The monsters approached, growing in size as they did, snarling viciously as they towered over her.

Turning to run, seeing that she could summon nothing to defend her, she tripped over her feet, as she always did, and landed face first in the dust, crying out. "Daddy, p-please… h-help… I'm s-sorry… I'm sorry!" She could feel the massive dogs' hot breaths as they stood over her, snarling and snapping, their molten teeth mere inches from her head, causing her to curl in on herself, whimpering.

The dogs' snarls and barks only grew louder, drowning out her cries and even the roar of the tornadoes, until they were deafening even with her ears pressed firmly against her head. The scalding heat of their bodies, alone, was enough to cause her to cry out, but when a searing fang pierced her leg, she screamed, her eyes shooting open as she writhed under its grasp, trying desperately to escape or force the beast to release her. Flailing wildly, her vision darkened around her, causing her panic to heighten, only speeding the process up as the encroaching darkness consumed her.

When she opened her eyes again, panic returned as the world remained dark, but as soon as she cried out, a glowing red light appeared in front of her, accompanied soon enough with glowing white eyes and jet black irises staring curiously at her. At first she assumed the red glow was another of the lava beasts, hunting her back down, sending her sprawling back against the wooden headboard behind her. It wasn't until his eyes began glowing that Itara recognized the doll and immediately reached for him, hugging him tightly to her chest as she attempted to calm her breath.

"The temptation to go incorporeal right now just to watch you panic more is incredibly high," Kipper snorted, though had apparently decided better of his amusement as he remained solid and grasped tightly in the little one's arms. "Though you're going to tear my stuffing out if you keep up with the claws."

It was only then that Itara realized how uncomfortable everything felt, but at the same time, that she was in a bed in a relatively cool room. She said nothing to the doll that was continuously trying to antagonize her, but loosened her grip just enough to reach up and run a hand down her quills. They were crystalized. Throwing the blanket from her legs, she swung them over to try and find the edge of the bed, keeping Kipper locked in her grip, and eventually dropped down to the floor. Literally. Her knees gave out as soon as her feet touched the floor and she collapsed under her own weight. She only had time enough to whine before she had to blink furiously against the bright light in her room being thrown on and Mira rushing in and to her side.

"Are you alright?! It's late, you should go back to sleep, what are you doing up?" He pulled her to her feet, but Itara couldn't help but notice the bandages wrapped around his arm.

"What… what happened?" She couldn't remember anything after they left the school. When did they get home? Why were her crystals out? Why couldn't she make them go away? Where was RK?

Mira followed her sight to his arm, helping her back onto the bed before questioning, "You don't remember?" Itara shook her head and Mira looked off to the side for a moment, seeming to debate what to tell her. When he looked back at her, there was an expression Itara couldn't quite read on his face. Pained? Concerned? …Cautious? "During the ride home, you had an… episode… of some kind. You started mumbling to yourself, we couldn't get you out of it," he explained, reaching up to rub his injured arm, "then there was… some kind of explosion. We don't know what caused it, your mother was badly injured, I got off easy with mostly scratches, and I think your robot is fine. You seemed to be fine, thankfully… for the most part." He looked over her, his eyes falling back to her crystallized quills, "those… appeared after the explosion, though."

Itara frowned, reaching back to run her hand over them again, unsure what to say. She couldn't very well explain them, could she? She doubted they'd be able to guess, at least. From the look on his face, she could tell he was concerned, but as much as she wanted to quell his worries, she didn't know how to explain it. Could she pretend she didn't know? Looking down towards her legs, she finally spotted the reason for her collapse, one of her legs was wrapped up. Reaching down, she moved the bandages to the side as much as she could to see what was wrong, spotting the singed fur and recoiling. If that had all just been a nightmare… why was she injured in that exact spot? Was it just the explosion? Had she caused it somehow or was it an outside force?

Mira interrupted her thoughts before long, questioning wearily, "do you… know what caused this?" He motioned, once more, towards her crystals. Itara honestly didn't know what to tell him. Keeping her eyes on her leg, she debated, going through the possibilities, eventually realizing an obvious response.

"I… I don't," she blinked a couple times, her brows furrowing in confusion as she reached back to touch them again, "I… don't r-remember… much a-about… when I was with… Robotnik… do you… think he might have…?" She let her sentence trail off, her ears pressing against her head as she wrapped her arms back around Kipper. She felt Mira jerk beside her but kept her glance ahead of her, the confusion remaining on her face. They all remained silent for some time, each debating the implications of what she'd said, though for varying reasons. Eventually, however, Mira pushed himself back to his feet, stretching an arm out in the process, and turned back towards her. Itara only barely glanced up at him, curious of his reaction.

"Well, it's late," he began, slowly, clearly still lost in thought, "you should lie back down and get more sleep. Luckily you weren't too badly hurt, but you could likely still use the rest. It's been a long day for you." Itara nodded and moved to get back up against the pillows, watching as Mira pulled the blankets up over her. "Do you think you'll be able to sleep?"

"Y-yeah… I th-think so."

Nodding, Mira pet between her ears before turning back towards the door, turning the light out for her again on his way out, "goodnight, Itara."

"Goodnight."

Once they were both sure he was gone, Kipper glowed up again and moved in front of her, "clever."

Itara looked over at him, sitting up and leaning back however she could with her crystals, "I c-couldn't very well… explain, now could I?"

"No, of course not," the doll sneered, "so what _actually_ happened, then?" Itara remained silent for several long seconds, she hardly knew, herself, she wasn't sure how to explain it even to Kipper. Then again, the doll knew more than he let on, even about the past timeline, perhaps she could tell him simply what she experienced and he would understand enough. Perhaps in talking it out, she would understand more, herself, and she could give a more detailed report of it to RK in the morning.


	5. Chapter 5

Quick Author's Note:

Sorry for the lack of update last week, but I'll be uploading Chapter 4 and 5 together today because of it. I couldn't remember my login and, quite frankly, didn't feel like fighting my broken keyboard to figure it out. So double-update!

* * *

Any and all awkwardness Itara expected to feel from the entire 'school' experience was only heightened that much more by the fact that she couldn't get her crystals to go away, no matter how hard she tried. She had hoped they would go back down after she got more sleep, but there had been no luck there whatsoever. She tried explaining to RK what had happened during the ride home the day before, hoping he might help her find a reason her crystals had spiked when she had no access to her powers, and thus perhaps an answer to make them go away, but again, no luck.

Mira had offered his own possible answers to her 'strange' transformation, but given that he could never know the true reason behind them, he could offer no relief from them, either. Even Kelly had come up with her own, somehow more outlandish than the reality, explanation for the crystals at the ends of her quills, and while they had given even Itara a brief giggle of amusement, it still did nothing to help them go back down. Which all, very unfortunately for Itara, resulted in the crystals still being there on her first day of school. Itara had even attempted to get in contact with Solaris, himself, when she was sure she was safe from prying eyes, yet it yielded no more result than anything else, if not less.

And thus, Itara walked into the school, as done-up in her new uniform as possible, with shining teal and purple crystals perpetually attached to her quills. It gained her endless strange looks from both teachers and fellow students, even the headmaster questioned her about them, as they obviously hadn't been there when he first met her, but she did her best to ignore it. She was just glad her transformation stopped at the crystals. Any more than that would have resulted in more problems than even she could ignore. Her natural eye color, alone, was bound to draw unwanted attention, let alone her stutter or tendency to trip over her own feet. She never questioned her father before and would have liked to never need to, but she was absolutely convinced this entire 'school' idea was a terrible one in every possible way.

On the plus side, for the first time in her life, she was thankful for her stutter when her teachers realized she likely didn't want to talk very often because of it. One long, uncomfortable introduction was all it took to make sure her teachers mostly left her alone for the remainder of class. Of course, where teachers left her alone, her classmates didn't, and it took every ounce of her willpower to ignore them. She would just make note of them for later. When she had her powers again. Or at least… when she had control of them. Her powers were apparently still there somewhere, which alleviated her fears that they were gone completely, she just didn't have control over them.

Mobian mortals aside, there were at least two classes she actually looked forward to taking part in, after having received her schedule, and those were History and Computer Sciences. History, it seemed, was a basic requirement for every grade level, though the focus of said classes changed by age. She took great delight, despite her stutter, in showing her vast knowledge of the various histories of the Mobian world. They would just never know that for much of it… she had _been there_. Or at least seen it in passing during research for her father.

The only time she held her tongue in any way during this specific class was when they mentioned Soleanna and the Royal Family. She couldn't keep the scowl off her face, but she refrained from going off on rants she couldn't explain about the Royal Family and their terrible decisions… or the alternate timelines, for that matter. On the one hand, this class would give her a good look into what was different between this reset and the other timelines, which she'd hardly had an opportunity to check until then. But on the other hand there were endless amounts of animosity for what Soleanna did to her father that was hard to contain.

The most irritating difference she'd noted, however, was that the princess was still alive… as well as that infuriating blue hedgehog, both of which she'd worked so hard to kill. She didn't understand why Solaris wouldn't just keep them dead after everything. Maybe he couldn't reset everything without reviving them, as well. Should she be trying to find them again? Would they remember her? Would any of them? Kipper and RK remembered her, of course, but what about Sonic or Shadow? Or Robotnik? Was her alternate self still with Robotnik in this timeline? Then again, this was a reset, rather than a branching path. So what all did that mean for her?

She lost herself so completely that she hardly noticed the remainder of the class pass by, almost running late to the next class because she hadn't heard them be dismissed. Of course, she couldn't very well _run_ to her next class, either, as that just invited tripping and she wanted to keep whatever dignity she could manage around the mortals. She would just walk as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, she got lost back into her thoughts about the timelines and branches, zoning right back out, and ended up colliding with another girl she had seen in one of her previous classes. They both went crashing to the floor, books and papers thudding loudly in the echoing hallway, catching the attention of several passersby, some of whom stopped to help the girl she'd collided with but not her.

Grumbling angrily under her breath, she zoned back in to glare at the other girl and grab her spilled books, but stopped to watch her, instead. As other classmates scrambled to get the other girl's books for her, Itara watched as the girl's pigtails moved about on their own to feel out the environment. She watched as slim grey eyes slid over everyone, yet seemed to actually see nothing in front of her. To test the theory, Itara narrowed her own eyes dangerously when the other's eyes fell on her. She gave no reaction. Was she blind? Pulling herself back to her feet and picking up her own books, Itara watched the small group around the other girl wearily until one of them finally turned to face her.

"You should be more aware of where you're going. Sceira can't see." So her name was Sceira… and she was, in fact, blind. Itara debated her response, wondering whether she should play nice with the others for the time being or let them know how little she actually cared. Well. She was without her powers, perhaps it would benefit her to play nice for now. You never knew when someone could be useful.

Giving a small cough, she softened her outward tone and began, "I… apologize," Sceira seemed to recognize her voice once she spoke as she turned towards her, "I w-wasn't paying… I was… I was l-lost in thought. E-excuse me… I'd like not t-to be late." Itara gave a quick nod of her head before walking around the group and heading for her class again, going back into thought but being careful of her surroundings this time. There was something about the pigtailed blind girl Itara couldn't put her finger on. Perhaps it was the pincers at the end of those pigtails she was weary of. Itara wasn't sure what kind of mobian she was, but she was certainly no hedgehog, fox, nor echidna. She decided she'd very much like to keep her distance from the other girl, as much as possible.

Her next class, at least, was the other one she was particularly interested in taking, not because she already knew everything about it, but because it was a subject she actually wanted to learn more from, that Mira had specially requested she take: Computer Sciences. While she knew plenty already, she'd needed to in order to fix RK in the first place, let alone keep him updated, but the more she could learn, to better upgrade him, the better for them both. Luckily, it was one of the few positive outcomes of Robotnik and his constant, well-known attacks: there were plenty of opportunities to learn from his creations. In a school like this, it wasn't out of the question to study his creations directly, meaning what she learned would actually be relevant to her. Sceira wasn't in this class, in fact a lot of the students around her were actually in grades above hers, which suited Itara just fine. She could focus on her studies without worrying about the weird pincer-haired girl.

Unlike History, Itara spent far less time showing off in this class, and even less time zoning out, yet the class went just as quick if not quicker. Just as she was getting a feel for how things would work, the bell rang through the building and the teacher dismissed the class, much to her dismay. There was only one more class before school was out, but Itara was more interested in what this one could teach her, rather than hurrying home like most her classmates. Huffing in annoyance, she checked her schedule for her final period and which direction it would be in, before heading back off through the maze of corridors. She really should have paid attention on that tour.

She also maybe should have paid attention to which classes she had been signed up for. It hadn't occurred to her until she found the separate building she was looking for, but her final class was a music-based one… and Itara had no idea how to play an instrument. She looked on in almost horror as other students began setting up their various instruments, some warming up right away, some standing talking in a corner, the teacher getting the day's pieces together by a podium, it all made her want to run and hide. Of all the things she'd learned over her many, many lives, she'd never bothered with music before. It was never relevant. When she first came into existence she didn't even know what music _was_. She didn't even know what instrument they _thought_ she could play. She certainly hadn't come to school with one.

As she stood in utter terror by the door, hoping maybe her newness might save her from having to play, and maybe even go change her class to something different, the teacher seemed to catch sight of her and made her way over. Itara swallowed her panic and stood as calmly as possible, watching the teacher approach and looking around with feigned disinterest.

"Ah! You must be the new student, Itara, right? I'm so glad to have you join us, we've been missing a violin player for so long but I can never convince any of the others to switch!"

Violin?

Finally it dawned on her. One of the many items Itara regularly ignored in that bedroom she'd taken residence in… was a very finely kept, white and gold violin. And on top of everything, she was _the only one_?! That meant she couldn't even just pretend to play and hide under the others or even _watch_ others to learn it! She was the only one! She struggled to keep the terror from her face, but her ears flattened against her head, much to her own dismay. Luckily or unluckily, Itara wasn't sure which, but the teacher picked up on her apprehension and just smiled.

"Don't worry, if you'd like you can just sit and listen and watch for today, since it doesn't seem you brought your instrument with you, but I'll send you home with some warmups and what we're working on. You can practice at home and when you feel comfortable you can start playing with the others. If you need further assistance, don't hesitate to come by after school, as well. I'd be happy to help you catch up." With that, she showed Itara around the room, explaining the separate areas and the seating, showed her where to sit once she joined them, and how classes usually went. Despite her best attempts to quell her fears, however, Itara heard almost none of it as she was in an utter panic. She'd never played an instrument in her life.

She spent the entirety of the class staring out and watching everyone carefully, gauging how well she might be able to mask her inability to play under the noise of the others, but her stomach churned every time they played sections by instrument rather than together. She would be the only one. How had she missed this?! She did her absolute best to keep her thoughts from reaching her face, but it did little to keep the shaking from her hands. At some point, her irritation and nerves ran through her body, causing the wound on her leg to start to burn again and it was all Itara could do to escape to the nearest bathroom to try and run some cold water over it. However, as soon as she pulled her leg up to look it over, she could only stare in confusion. Her wound wasn't just burning. It was burning _through_ the bandages.

She stared down at the singed black circle on the outside of the wraps and gingerly reached down to move them aside, feeling them crinkle under her hand, as she revealed the smoldering burn underneath. What was this? What was causing this? It couldn't be a manifestation of her powers, like her crystals, she'd never had control over fire or lava before. She had been created from Mephiles, not Iblis. Was it possibly caused by them being Solaris now? Was it possible it affected her powers as well? But why would it be burning her leg like this, then? She shook her head, knowing she'd get nowhere at the moment, and continued removing the bandages to wrap a cold paper towel around it, instead. The water hissed into steam the second it touched her leg, though, and the towel burnt away the same way her bandages did. What was she supposed to do about this now? It hurt, wrapping it back up was pointless, and leaving as it was meant putting her smoldering leg on display for all to see. She wanted to go home.

But even going home meant questions she couldn't answer.

She wished her dad would come and explain all this to her, as he did before. Or give her control over them, at least. If she had to deal with new powers, if that's what this was, she wanted to at least have some semblance of control over them.

Sighing in irritation, she pulled her phone out, glad she'd insisted on keeping it with her, but debated who to even call. She wanted to call RK, but what could he even do right now? He couldn't very well come get her, not right now. But if she called Mira or Kelly to come get her, she would have to explain why, and then they'd ask more questions. She wanted her book, she wanted her ability to look through the timelines, so she'd know the best answer, it was driving her insane being so unsure of everything nowadays. But more than anything, she just knew she didn't want to be here right now. Sighing heavily, she dialed Mira's number. Even if it meant more questions, she'd rather deal with them at home than at this school.

The ride home was silent besides the occasional bump from the road. Mira had tried several times to get an answer out of Itara at the beginning but realized quickly enough he wasn't getting anywhere and decided to let her be until they got home. Itara, on the other hand, was lost in her thoughts and hardly heard a word Mira said once they entered the car. She was regretting calling him, but at the same time thankful to be away from the school. She knew there would be questions and she doubted she could dodge them all after this so she was going through a myriad of responses she could possibly give without giving away too much. It was all starting to make her head hurt, though. She hadn't felt this overwhelmed since the original timeline and it wasn't doing her leg any favors.

By the time they reached the manor again, Itara could hardly walk her leg was burning so badly and Mira had to carry her inside. He continued to be relatively silent up the walk to the porch, which Itara was also thankful for, but it seemed her hopes of getting some ice on her leg without much more hub-bub would be dashed. The door swung open just before they reached it, revealing a frantic—and heavily bandaged—Kelly, who immediately bombarded them both with a string of panicked questions, which only worsened by the sight of Itara's leg. Mira waved her down, however, as best he could with the small child in his arms, and walked past her towards the kitchen.

"What happened?!"

"I don't know, she won't answer. Right now it's more important to get something on it, though. Go get an icepack from the freezer and bring it here would you?" Kelly nodded and darted off for the kitchen while Mira put Itara in one of the dining room chairs, looking over her before focusing on her leg again. The burn had grown in size since the bathroom and singed a circle of fur nearly an inch in diameter and was still radiating enough heat to cause Mira to pull his hand back after getting his fingers too close, his brows furrowing in confusion. "How badly does this hurt?" he finally asked, looking up at her again, concern more blatant on his face than it had been since she met him. It put a knot in her stomach.

"I-It… uh… a… l-lot?" Looking away from him, she closed her eyes to assess the pain better, hoping to give a more helpful answer. While she was thinking, Kelly returned with the icepack and handed it to Mira, who felt it carefully to make sure it was solid before moving to press it against Itara's leg. As soon as it came close, however, the ice started melting and before the bag could be fully pressed against the burn, it was dripping and melted completely back to water. All three of them frowned as they studied the reaction.

"Perhaps… we need more than an icepack," Mira stated, standing back up, "I'll fix a small ice bath for you and we'll see how that fares. Wait here for a little longer, alright?" Itara nodded and Mira left, crossing his arms as his ears pinned back against his head in thought.

Sighing in frustration, Itara leaned back against the chair, meeting the wide, concerned eyes of Kelly as soon as she did. Everything she was thinking was so blatant on her face, Itara wondered why she ever even bothered talking in the first place, it didn't take a psychic to read her thoughts. Pulling the side of her mouth back a bit, she looked away, muttering a small, "I'll… be f-fine…" Wanting to shift the focus away from her smoldering leg, Itara turned back and studied Kelly and her many wrapped bandages, figuring they were likely from the explosion the other day, and motioned towards them, "are you… okay?"

Despite her apparent injuries, Kelly seemed just as lively as ever, and the shock that came across her face at the question made Itara think she might have even forgotten she was injured in the first place even with her right arm being wrapped in a sling. Looking down, she gave a half-laugh and waved her free hand, "ah, I've seen worse, don't you worry 'bout me, kiddo. Just worry 'bout that leg a' yours, alright? I'm a fast healer." Itara had no evidence otherwise, since she didn't know the extent of her initial injuries, but it didn't help the weird feeling seeing the bandages caused. She didn't… feel _guilty_ , did she? Even if she _had_ somehow been the cause of the explosion, and she couldn't say one way or another, she had never felt guilty for injuring someone before, intentionally or otherwise. Why was she starting now?

The thought bothered her, a great deal, and in an attempt to distract herself from it, she pulled her phone out and texted RK, explaining the situation to him since he would understand it better. She was already frustrated by a lot _before_ school, adding this and the run-in with that scorpion girl and the fact that nothing they were doing was helping the burning and it seemed to be getting larger, it was getting hard to handle and she just wanted it all to stop already. She told all this to RK, who did his best to calm her down, saying he would be on his way over soon, but by the time Mira returned to inform her that the bath was ready, she felt on the verge of exploding. She remained as silent as possible as he carried her down the hall to the downstairs bathroom, but his silence was almost more off-putting than the barrage of questions from Kelly.

Pulling her shoes and socks off, she sat down on the edge of the bathtub and put her leg in, listening to and watching the water sizzle and steam as soon as it came in contact with her burn. Even with the added ice in the tub, the water around her leg warmed at an incredible rate, melting the ice, and leaving a room-temperature half-filled tub. The water, at least, helped soothe the burn a little, even if it was no longer cold. It was something. It calmed Itara's mood slightly, but the continued silence from Mira put her back on edge. She looked over at him, studying the perplexed look on his face, before averting her eyes again. She really didn't know how to explain this without actually _explaining_ it. She didn't know what to do.

"You know more than you're telling me, don't you?" Itara jolted up, looking over at him, shocked at first, before panicking and looking away again. She looked down at her reflection in the water, debating what to say, but a sudden weight on her head threw her thought process off. She looked back and up again, trying to keep her shock and confusion off her face, but a shift in his expression told her she had failed. Frowning, he moved to sit beside her on the tub's side, petting her head lightly, "Itara… if you know something that might help, you need to tell me. Please… I'll do whatever I can to help you, but you have to tell me what's wrong."

Itara's own expression shifted from shock to uncertainty as she avoided meeting his gaze, trying to figure out the best answer but her mind was such a jumbled mess she was having a hard time focusing on any one set of answers. Her face scrunched up as she grew more and more frustrated at being unable to discern the correct answer and eventually, her eyes stinging with tears, she finally broke down and explained the real situation to him. Most of her speech was unintelligible, between her stutter and the crying, but Mira picked enough of it out to understand, his own eyes widening at the answer. As Itara devolved further into sobs and sniffles, he looked away, his shoulders seeming to drop though he remained otherwise calm.

Reaching up, he pulled his glasses off and closed his eyes, rubbing the bridge of his nose and taking slow, deep breaths to calm himself further. Keeping his eyes closed, he sat back up and let out another long, slow breath before putting his glasses back on and turning to Itara, opening his eyes again. They were filled with so much sadness and bitterness that Itara nearly recoiled, but before she could, he reached over, causing her to flinch as she expecting him to lash out at the news. However, much to her shock, and confusion, he wrapped his arms carefully around her and pulled her close, being cautious of the few crystals still in her spines, and pet her head lightly. Itara didn't know how to react to it. This wasn't the response she was expecting at all, but at the same time, it was so calming, she hardly even felt like thinking about it. She knew she shouldn't, she couldn't get this close to them, they weren't her real family, they were just mortals, she wasn't their real daughter, and Mira knew that now. But even so, even knowing what she actually was, he still wasn't rejecting her… and secretly, though she wouldn't admit it even to RK, she liked this. But it was also scary, it was too comforting, it wasn't what she was used to.

Once she had managed to quiet her crying again and sit up, Itara could only stare down into the water, though Mira never removed his hand from her head. At length, he spoke up again, smiling sadly over at her, "let's… not tell Kelly about this… alright?" When she met his gaze with confusion, he frowned and looked away, himself, towards the bathroom door, "she's emotional. This is hard enough for me to handle, I'm just more trained to control my emotions, Kelly… isn't. At all. Something like this… could break her. I don't want to see her cry anymore. It's best if she goes on believing you've just lost your memories." He looked over at Itara again, still frowning, "promise me you'll keep this between us."

Itara gave it a moment of thought, studying him, but slowly nodded in agreement. She didn't even have any intention of telling _him_ this in the first place, and she certainly didn't expect him to react as calmly as he did. Even she could recognize the mistake of telling Kelly. Once she nodded, Mira gave a small sigh and stood back up, "I'll get more ice for the bath, it's all melted already. Is it helping any?"

"A… l-little," Itara stammered, getting another nod from Mira before he left the bathroom to get more ice, leaving her to her thoughts once more. This really was all just a bit too much for her. While she still hadn't told Mira _everything_ , it would have taken a lot longer to try and explain the previous timelines, she had told him more than she ever intended to. Then again, she didn't imagine she was going to be just up and leaving this family so easily now, anyway. Maybe Mira knowing wasn't such a bad thing. Maybe he could help her somehow. Maybe she could even get his help repairing Sparky if she explained more of the situation to him. Sighing, she looked back down at the water again, moving her leg so it was under more and watched the steam rise.

Mira returned soon with another bag of ice and poured it into the bath, having another short conversation with Itara about what she'd told him, mostly getting her to clarify the parts he hadn't understood through her stutters. Itara told him about being created in Robotnik's lab, being a shard of power from a time traveler locked in a scepter, though conveniently left out mention of Metal Sonic. She tried to explain the original timeline, as well as about Mephiles and Iblis, though also left out that they were parts of Solaris, and about her real acquisition of RK. While she was explaining, the robot showed up, led in by Kelly and followed her to the bathroom.

"Are you alright?"

"Y-yes… m-mostly," Itara frowned, "it hurts but," she glanced down at the ice bath before looking up at him, "Mira's doing his best." RK studied her curiously, noting an odd change in her mood, but when he brought it up, Itara only flushed and began stammering again. After a good bit of stuttering about, she finally explained, "…Mira knows…"

"Knows?"

"What I am… I told him."

RK blinked and looked between them, assessing the situation and frowning, "Well, I suppose that makes some situations easier." He turned to Mira now, who studied him closely in return, "how much did she explain?"

"Mostly the fact that she was… created," the word came off odd to him, "in one of Robotnik's labs and a bit about this 'original timeline'." He looked between the two before eyeing RK again, stating with more of his usual sharp coldness, "as well as the fact that you're also a Robotnik robot. I knew you were too advanced to just be any android."

"I see." RK only shrugged at the accusatory tone, "I was created by Robotnik, yes. But I've long since been rogue and it was even longer still since Robotnik actually activated me. I can assure you that's not a concern. What is a concern, however, are the potential enemies Itara has besides Robotnik, himself. Since you know now, I can better explain why we've both remained out of the public eye as much as possible. She told you about the original timeline, but did she tell you about the final one?"

"Not yet, no."

"According to my data, given to me by both Itara, herself, and retained from the previous timeline, in the final timeline before this 'reset', as she often calls it, there were a number of dangerous enemies who knew her power and connection to Mephiles. The biggest threat of them all was Shadow, I'm sure you're aware of him."

"I am."

"Shadow, like Itara, had a particular connection to Mephiles but unlike Itara, worked to stop him at all costs. He's attacked Itara multiple times throughout the timelines and, while I don't know who else all remembers what happens, if anyone would, it'd likely be Shadow, given his abilities. We've been lucky to avoid him thus far and its best if that trend continues. Sonic and Robotnik are also potential threats, but Shadow is the highest threat level. Realistically speaking, I doubt any of them remember, the only reason I remember as much as I do is because Itara replaced many of my files on it. But it's better to be cautious."

"I see." Mira considered this for several long minutes before looking to Itara again, "well, we can talk more on this later. Update me as much as you feel you can about all this, but I'd like to repeat my statement from before. Kelly can't know. We'll talk more about this in my lab later, she doesn't go down there, and you can hear her a mile away on the rare chance she does, but I don't want her knowing any of this."

"Why not?" RK questioned, eyeing Mira curiously, "wouldn't it be best for you both to be aware of the risks?"

"Normally yes, but in this case… I'd like her to continue believing Itara is still our Itara. Maybe I'll explain it to her later on, but for now, it's better she doesn't know."

"Very well," RK shrugged.

Mira nodded decisively before turning to Itara again, offering a small smile, "when your leg is starting to feel better, why don't we go down to my lab and you can help me with more of my work? I'm sure there's still plenty for you to learn."

Itara lit up at this, though looked cautiously towards him, "you… s-still want me… to help you?"

"Of course. If anything, I now know you need my guidance and expertise even more than before. As soon as your leg starts feeling better let me know and we can head down, alright?"

Itara smiled happily at this and nodded, "right!" This was not how she expected all of this to turn out at all. But she was okay with it, for once. Maybe not knowing _everything_ wasn't so bad every once in a while.


	6. Chapter 6

Itara, RK, and Mira spent most the rest of the evening down in the lab, discussing the real situation while Mira continued teaching Itara more about what he knew. At one point, an anxious Kelly came downstairs during their conversation, but just as Mira expected, she made enough noise on her way down that they were easily able to halt their talk before she could hear anything. Not wanting to spark her suspicions, or her stubbornness, Mira offered to let her stay down there with them while they worked as long as she promised not to touch anything. It wasn't often he allowed her down in his lab for any length of time, because she had a penchant for destruction, but he knew she would want to be near Itara, especially considering the incident that day, and told her he would make an exception.

However, as Mira also expected, as soon as he started explaining the technology behind a specific robot in great detail, she found her own reason to leave with a passing comment about them all being dweebs. Mira shook his head and watched her go, making sure she was out of earshot before motioning for them to continue the explanations. Kelly could be extremely unpredictable sometimes in her responses, and yet, in a way, she was often also extremely predictable. He could always count on her getting bored immediately with his 'techno-babble', as she often called it. As much as he wanted Kelly to spend as much time with Itara as possible, as well, he also wanted to know more about the real situation so he could best prepare for whatever may happen.

After he got as much explanation as Itara felt comfortable giving him, he shifted his focus fully back onto the robotics and, knowing he needed the distraction now, blocked all else from his mind to instruct Itara on repairs. RK, as well, looked over the processes, making several notes about Mira's abilities and technical know-how for future reference. He really did put Robotnik to shame, it was baffling. He was more than sure Mira could not only fully repair both he and Metal Sonic, but even upgrade them considerably if he chose to. Itara seemed to come to the same conclusion, as she asked about it, and, after a fair bit of consideration, Mira agreed. He wanted to study RK more, anyway, as he'd never been able to delve into a still functional Robotnik robot. They would save it for a later date, however, as he wanted to spend more time catching Itara up.

It was late into the day when Kelly came back downstairs again, whining about it being past dinner time, and catching Mira's attention. He glanced towards the large screen behind him to check the time before sighing, "right. Sorry, Kelly, we lost track of time."

"Nerds."

"Yes, well, this nerd makes your dinner so keep it up and _you'll_ be cooking tonight," Mira snapped, standing up and beginning to put his tools away, Itara chuckling at the horrified look on Kelly's face. "That's what I thought." Itara got up to help, laughing again at the Kelly's pout. They got everything put away and Mira closed the unneeded programs on his computer, leaving only a couple windows up that were running various scans. "There, I suppose I'll go make dinner now." As he moved towards Kelly to push her out of the lab, he stopped when she seemed to be staring off and followed her line of sight to the computer screen, "what?"

"You have a thingy," she stated, pointing towards a smaller screen at the bottom, a small yellow tab was flashing on the bar.

Mira looked towards it before turning back towards her, "it's just an update notification. I have a lot of scans running and the programs give me a notification whenever one finishes. I'll check it after dinner."

"You sure it isn't a message from your secret girlfriend?" Kelly prodded, grinning.

Mira rolled his eyes, "as if I could ever deal with more than one relationship. You're tiring enough as is."

"Well, if you say so," Kelly laughed, shrugging, and turned towards the stairs, taking off with her usual excitement. Mira shook his head and followed after her, Itara and RK in tow, exchanging glances at the two's interaction. They really were quite the couple. Itara thought it was a little funny to watch them but RK hadn't fully picked up on the sarcasm and worried that Kelly was actually suspicious. Not that it was really any of his concern, anyway.

Mira got dinner made up and they briefly discussed the events at school, mostly goaded on by Kelly, but after Itara made it clear she didn't want to talk about it the subject was dropped. Instead, Kelly decided to give them all a full rant about some new painting that was apparently specifically trying to piss her off, despite being her own creation. When Itara tried explaining that she didn't think a painting had enough sentience to do such a thing, Mira shook his head and told her it a lost cause. Kelly apparently ranted about this often and no amount of argument otherwise would convince her that her ravings were completely irrational.

After dinner Itara put more ice on her burn and Mira did his best to get it wrapped up so she could at least sleep without burning through her blankets. They had to freeze the bandages and put an ice pack between them and her leg to make any sort of progress, but once that was taken care of, RK left again and Itara went up to her bedroom. She wanted to watch some cartoons before she went to sleep since she hadn't had a chance to dig into any of the DVDs yet. She got comfy on the small couch and grabbed Kipper, but had only gotten a few minutes into the second episode when a knock came at her door again. Pausing it, and telling Kipper to be quiet, she called to let them come in and leaned around the TV to see who it was.

Kelly came in with a couple small bags of snacks and walked over, shutting the door behind her, smiling guiltily towards her. "Don't tell your dad I'm letting you eat snacks before bed, alright?"

Itara looked down at the bags and had to keep the grin off her face when she saw two bags of chocolate chip cookies. "I won't tell."

"Great," Kelly beamed, walking over and plopping down on the couch beside her, handing one bag over to her and keeping the other for herself, apparently, as she opened it and popped a couple of the tiny snacks in her mouth. "Ooo, haven't watched this one in a while," she exclaimed, looking towards the TV.

Itara glanced over at her, opening her own bag, "You watch this?"

"Usually just with you but… well," Kelly frowned before shaking her head and grabbing the remote to unpause it, "it wouldn't hurt to get caught up." Itara studied her curiously, unsure what to make of the situation, but eventually shrugged and settled back in to watch her show. She had only ever seen a handful of episodes here and there, but what she grasped of the story she liked. She'd been meaning to get ahold of the rest of the episodes somehow so she wasn't going to miss her chance now.

She and Kelly binged through the entire first season, even after Mira came up to yell at them both to go to bed, and Itara had never been happier to finally have someone other than RK and Kipper to talk about her shows with. She'd never been able to make friends before, not that she'd ever really tried, either, and even if Kelly was supposed to be a parental figure, she felt far more like a kid Itara could have fun with than a parent. They both quickly shoved their cookie bags under the couch pillows when Mira came in and they both giggled quietly when he left again. Kelly laughed the hardest at the funny parts of the show and cried the hardest at the climax. She even got up and whipped around an imaginary sword during one of the fights, tripping over one of the bean bag chairs and laughing that much harder when she did.

Itara had so much fun, mostly just laughing _at_ Kelly, that she'd nearly forgotten she wasn't supposed to be getting attached to them. Kelly had a way of completely obliterating her guards and by the time they were putting the DVDs away again and Itara was getting ready for bed, her face hurt from smiling so much. Kelly helped her pick out a nightgown and get her into bed, making sure the bandages were properly wrapped after she laid back down, before leaning over to kiss her forehead.

"G'night, kiddo. Sorry I kept ya up so late. I'll make sure yer dad doesn't yell at ya for bein' tired in the morning, kay?" Kelly laughed, handing Kipper to her as she snuggled down into the bed.

"Kay," Itara smiled, yawning, "th-thank you, m-… K-Kelly."

Kelly watched her quietly for a moment before nodding, "you're welcome, kiddo. Sleep well." She pat Itara's head before turning around, grabbing the cookie bags on her way through, and turning the lights out on her way out of the room. Once the door was closed, Itara closed her eyes, but felt movement from the doll in her arms.

"You were gonna say 'mom'," Kipper grinned.

Itara remained silent, opening one eye to stare up at the bright red gem, but shut it again, wrapping her arms tighter around him, "go t-to sleep, Kipper." The doll only snickered, but went quiet again and before long, Itara drifted off to sleep.

Itara ran through the fire-scorched city, barking, snarling dogs snapping angrily at her heels, just missing by mere centimeters, as she called out for someone to help. She kept tripping over dislodged concrete and having to jump down broken slopes, just barely keeping the dogs behind her. As she was sliding down an especially steep hill, the ground began to rumble and the movement caused her to lose what little footing she had, sending her crashing face-first down the rest of the hill. Crying out, she curled in on herself, hearing the dogs at her feet… but then they stopped.

Itara looked up again, staring wide-eyed at the empty landscape. The dogs had vanished. But as she attempted to get back up to her feet to run again, the ground shook yet again, falling away and sending her down into a pit of darkness along with all the rubble of the destroyed city. Screaming into the emptiness, she shut her eyes, not wanting to watch her fall, but as soon as she did, she stopped falling. She hadn't hit anything, but she no longer felt as if she was falling, either. Warily opening one eye, she looked around her, seeing nothing but empty blackness. Time was frozen, but all the rubble had vanished, just like the dogs.

Frowning, she curled in on herself again, shutting her eyes tightly, not wanting to see what would happen next. But as the world around her grew light, she opened them again, looking to where the light was coming from. A massive, bright, glowing figure came into view, all yellow and white except for the bright red circle in the center. She knew that figure! Uncurling again, she reached out for the figure, though was unable to move in the empty space. She tried calling out to him, but she had no voice, either.

The figure cleared, its large wings spreading wide, as a voice began echoing around her. She couldn't understand it at first, it was hardly more than a mumble, but as it grew louder and louder, it became clearer and clearer.

"… _wake up_ … wake up… WAKE UP!"

Itara darted up, her eyes widened, staring out into the darkness, nearly screaming when the angry glowing doll dropped down in front of her, "get out."

"What?"

"Just get out. Out of the house. Grab your phone and _get out_. Now."

"Kipper, wh-"

"Don't argue! Just grab your phone and get out of this house _now!_ "

Itara frowned, but nodded, crawling to the edge of the bed to grab her phone off the charger. Her leg still hurt and she was tired, it was still dark so she couldn't have been asleep for very long, but Kipper kept rushing her to hurry and get out, floating behind her. Once she was at the door, she looked down the hall, "should we get-?"

"No time, go!"

"But Kipper-!"

"No!"

The doll hissed and turned incorporeal, moving into her body, her eyes turning black as he did. She slumped for only a moment before scrambling towards the stairs. Halfway down, a thunderous _**boom**_ erupted from the basement floor, causing the entire manor to shake violently and most of the first floor to cave in. Immediately after, a chain reaction of explosions were set off, destroying walls and collapsing ceilings, a crashing beam only barely missing Itara as she ran down the stairs. The bottom steps were already crumbling and a panicked scream echoed from upstairs, but Itara kept going, not slowing down until she'd jumped from the destroyed steps to the front entrance.

Even once she reached the front steps, the walls continued caving around her and the door nearly crashed down on top of her, had she not dove off to the side, though her ankle got caught under it, nonetheless. However, almost as if she couldn't even feel the badly injured ankle or any previous injury, she darted back up and, just barely missing another fallen beam, rolled out the door and down the steps to the solid ground. The manor continued crumbling behind her, followed by yet another explosion from under the house, but Itara slumped forward again as the now panting doll reemerged from her body, looking over the building going up in flames.

As soon as her eyes returned to normal, Itara blinked, but jumped at the commotion coming from the house. Looking up from where she sat, her eyes widened in horror at the scene before her, her mouth dropping open, as she tried to process what was going on. Slowly, she turned towards Kipper, and reached out for him, going into a full, screaming panic as soon as she had her hands on him, "KIPPER! KIPPER, W-WHAT HAPPENED?! WHY IS-?! WHAT DID-?! _WHY?!_ "

Shakily, she pulled herself to her feet again, staring out at the fires, "we have… we have to… Kipper, w-what a-a-about-… M-Mira?! K-Kelly?!"

"Don't you dare even think about going back in there," Kipper threatened, moving out of her hands and tossing her phone to her, "get out of sight and call RK, someone's gonna notice this, you shouldn't be around when they do. I'll go look into your 'parents' for you." He stared her down until she got the message and waited until she started walking, though only noticed the pain in her ankle once she did, before turning towards the house and going incorporeal again to look through it. He was pretty sure they wouldn't survive a house toppling down on them, but just to keep Itara from checking, herself, he would look.

Itara made her way, slowly, cringing every time something else heavy dropped in the manor and echoed out into the night, towards the edge of the gardens and dropped against a half marble wall, looking down at her phone blankly. She didn't even know what she was doing. Everything felt blank. Her leg hurt, her ankle hurt, her chest hurt, but still she felt numb. She managed to dial RK's number and, after some half attempts to push the button, managed to call him. She didn't even know what time it was, it was still dark, but the fires from the manor were filling the night with a horrible orange glow.

It didn't take RK long to answer, but it took a few moments for Itara to respond.

"Itara? Itara, are you there? What's that noise? Itara?"

"…RK… c-come… p-please…" Her voice was hollow and a small hiccup escaped as Kipper made his way back over.

"I'm on my way. What's going on? Are you okay?"

When Itara took another moment to respond, Kipper sighed and grabbed the phone, answering for her, "I think something in the basement might have exploded, the whole manor's collapsed and on fire. It's actually a pretty great site—I mean," he looked over at the horrified little girl and redacted, "it's… simply terrible. Itara's okay, though. For the most part."

"Are Mira and Kelly…?"

" _Unfortunately_ , it was hard enough getting the brat out before the house collapsed on top of her. I couldn't do anything for the mobians. They got stuck in their bedroom."

RK sighed and remained silent for a moment, "alright… I'm about 20 minutes out, keep a watch over her for me, Kipper."

"You may wanna hurry. Someone's gonna notice the fires, and considering the sort of work Mira did, I wouldn't be surprised if some GUN members showed up. Not someone we need Itara around."

"Is she okay enough to walk?"

"Don't think she's moving on her own any time soon."

"Alright… I'll hurry. Watch her."

"Will do, Momma Bear."

By the time RK reached the manor, there were already helicopters on their way and he had to dodge around the side and hop the fence to reach the two. He found them easily enough, picking Itara up and looking towards the house, scanning for signs of life, himself, just to be sure, before sighing and taking off. Itara didn't say a word the entire way home, despite his best attempts, and eventually decided it was best to leave her alone. Kipper, on the other hand, remained just as chatty as usual when he was 'awake', telling him all about how Itara refused to move when he told her and how he had to physically move her, himself, otherwise she would have been buried along with her parents. RK ended up shushing him halfway home and the rest of the run was silent.

When they returned to the base, RK put Itara on the couch and went to get the first aid kit to take care of her ankle, as Kipper had _barely_ mentioned that he may have gotten a door dropped on it. He looked over her leg, noticing the loose bandages and decided to rewrap it back up with new ones. The entire time, she only stared out blankly, not responding to anything either of them said, refusing to sleep, and didn't even respond when RK asked if she wanted something chocolate. Eventually, he just pulled the comforter from the bed and wrapped her up in it and sat with her while keeping an eye on any news that would be popping up at some point about the fire.

* * *

Itara stared at the ashen rubble from afar, keeping the scarf and hood wrapped as tightly around her head as possible as she watched cranes and workers, alike, clear up the destruction. Construction signs and police tape was everywhere and the grounds were too busy for her to get any closer, but she wanted to at least see. Sighing, she looked down again, closing her eyes to keep the tears from escaping, before turning around and walking away again. She knew they were gone, she'd had both Kipper and RK check several times over and kept a close eye on any news about the fire, but she still didn't want to fully accept it.

It was a long walk back to the base, but she had insisted on going alone, despite RK's arguments. But she wasn't going all the way back to the base right away, anyway. She was planning to hide out near the grounds until everyone left, then go in and have a closer look. She knew RK wouldn't want her doing something so dangerous, but she felt like she needed to. She needed to check for herself. It was a long wait, and she'd ended up napping under a tree for a good portion of it, but eventually, as sunset drew near, the grounds slowly emptied of activity. Itara edged closer, waiting for the last person to leave, before slipping in under the fence and looking over the walk up to what used to be a vast manor.

The lights on the pathway were run by little solar panels and still lit up after dark, despite the destruction around them, though a number of them had been knocked out of place and were either broken or lying on their side. Itara made her way down the gravel pathway, pulling her sweater closer to her as the cold evening wind picked up, her eyes set on the wrecked building. It was a lengthy walk, especially with her limp, but eventually she reached the stone steps that once led to a beautifully carved door. Now the entire frame was gone, along with the door, itself, and a pathway made by cranes and mobians led to the center of the wreckage.

The entrance was seared black and the grand staircase to the second floor was completely flattened. The parlor was buried under rubble and the dining room had caved in entirely. The basement was equally buried and only signs of the staircase going down remained. Itara felt a small hiccup welling up in her throat, but pushed it back down as she carefully stepped into the charred entranceway. A small path had been made to the left of the staircase that Itara followed, carefully stepping over the remains of beams and furniture.

She'd heard two bodies were retrieved from the rubble, one attempting to shield the other when a beam had fallen on both of them. Itara guessed this was the path they made to get to those bodies and wanted to see, for herself, where the two had died. When she reached the end of the created pathway, however, she realized, judging by the second floor layout rather than the first floor, they had been in the hallway. Halfway between her room and theirs. Crouching down, she pressed a hand against the scorched ground, closing her eyes and trying, once again, to create a portal to the past. She had tried so many times to access her powers again, to save them, to get them out of the fire. She checked the news about the fire over and over again for changes, knowing that if she accessed her powers at some point, it would change. They wouldn't find bodies. But even now, even at the site, she still couldn't do it.

Opening her eyes again, a couple tears managing to escape, much to her dismay, she whined. Reaching up to wipe the tears away, she took a few deep breaths to try and calm back down. She knew she shouldn't have gotten attached. She knew. Nothing good would have ever come from this situation. She should have run as soon as they said her name. As soon as they showed up. As soon as she realized they recognized her, she should have run. She should have grabbed RK and left immediately. Curling in on herself, she shut her eyes tight, wrapping her hands around her head, and cried out into the encroaching night.

Dropping down to her knees, her arms dropping to her sides, she stared out at the scorched wood around her. She wished she could have at least saved something of theirs, if not them. But, then again, it was probably best she forgot about them. She shouldn't remember them. They weren't even her real parents, she wasn't their daughter, she was nothing to them. But even so… even after she told Mira… even after Mira knew… he still…. She reached up, putting a hand on her head and closing her eyes.

A sudden crumble of a footstep startled her out of her thoughts as she swung around, a bit too fast and ended up falling back, but stared up blankly at the giant red robot behind her. She should have known he would follow her. Well… that was fine. Sighing, she moved to get back on her feet, dusting as much of the ash off as possible as she turned away from him again.

"Itara…"

"I'm fine." _I'm not_.

"You shouldn't-"

"Leave me alone." _Please don't_.

"I don't-"

"Look, I'd just… rather be… by myself… right now." _Please don't leave me._

RK watched the small girl walk away from the destroyed manor, following her out of the wreckage and sighed. Her usual indifferent expression was resting on her face, but her ears were pinned sharply against her head. He took one more glance back at the pile of rubble, scanning for anything even remotely recoverable, before sighing and following after her again. Despite her distant attitude, she was visibly shaking and her legs looked ready to give out from under her. Instead of waiting until they did, he walked up and pulled her into his arms. She gave only a small, half-hearted fight, before settling back down.

"I'm… sorry… about the mobians."

"It's… b-better this way."

RK remained silent, looking down at her and studying her face. Not even she believed that, but she was trying so hard to. He would let it go for now, but later he would argue the point. When she was less… traumatized.

As soon as they got back to the base and RK set her down, Itara went over to the couch and picked the small black notebook she always kept up. She had explained once before that she kept track of the timeline branches in that book, when she had access to her powers, it was how she made decisions quicker. But it had remained empty since the reset, even though she regularly wrote in it still. Only the past was journaled in it now. Nothing of the future, making him wonder what she was writing now.

Flipping the book open to the next empty page, she walked to the small cup of colored pens, grabbed a thick red one, and scribbled in huge, shaky letters 'DON'T GO', then underlined it and closed the book again. She returned the book to the stand and, without a word still, went to her bedroom to change into clean pajamas. RK wasn't sure what to do now. This was the first time she had left the base since the fire, and it was only to return to the manor. She still had no control over her powers and the burn on her leg was still there, though finally seemed to be shrinking, and the crystals on her spines eventually went back down. He wasn't sure what would help Itara feel better and Kipper was no help. He was at a complete loss.

Well, he did have _one_ idea, but he wasn't sure how much it would actually help. There was an old fox mobian that he had promised to introduce Itara to when she 'came back'. Maybe he would know what to do.

END


End file.
